


Dragonfire and Sapphires

by GilShalos1



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Misunderstandings, Occasional banter, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-04-24 02:06:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 31,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19163611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilShalos1/pseuds/GilShalos1
Summary: “If you have some idea of how we can fight three dragons, ten thousand Unsullied, and more Dothraki than my sources can count, I’m all ears. No? Then Jaime, you will marry Daenerys Targaryen.”





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by a quip I read:  
> “What if Tywin hadn’t died? How would he have dealt with Daenerys?”  
> “Jaime, you will marry Daenerys Targaryen.”  
> AU in that Tyrion escaped without killing Tywin, and Tywin thus remained Hand to King Tommen, did not arm the Sparrows, which meant that ‘shame, shame’ and the Sept explosion did not happen. Tommen is king, Tywin is his Hand. Set just after Daenerys has landed at Dragonstone and the news has spread. Mixed ASOIAF canon and show canon in places, within the constraints of that significant AU. And this Jaime is far more broken than the Jaime I usually write.

 

Jaime Lannister stood before his father’s desk in the Tower of the Hand and tried not to fidget. He seemed to spend a great deal of time waiting these days, since returning to King’s Landing from Riverrun. Standing in the Great Hall while court business droned around him, letting himself go away inside to somewhere pleasant, like his tent at Riverrun’s siege, while the malice in Cersei’s gaze dripped like poison against his skin. Sitting in the Small Council as Master of War while his father’s disdain washed over him, letting it all slide past him until someone spoke his name and he had to come back. Summoned by Cersei when she’d had enough to drink to need someone to rage at, someone to strike, someone who wouldn’t complain or tell Tywin or strike her back.

Standing in front of the desk of the Hand of the King, waiting for his father’s attention.

Tywin knew Jaime was there, of course, but he kept his attention on the letter he was writing. Jaime had time to rerun his last practise bout with Bronn, marking out his mistakes, and the one before that, before Tywin sprinkled sand on the parchment and looked up.

“Ah, good. You’re here.”

“As you see,” Jaime said, voice laced with sarcasm.  

Tywin’s eyes narrowed. He rose to his feet, one hand behind his back. “You’d better learn to keep a leash on that tongue, and quickly. The new queen is unlikely to find it amusing.”

“New queen?” Jaime blinked. “Is Tommen to set –”

“King Tommen Baratheon, first of his name, is going to abdicate. The queen I am talking about has just landed on Dragonstone with an enormous foreign army and three – _three_ – fully grown dragons. Queen Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, first of her name, better get used to saying it.”

Jaime felt the blood drain from his face. _Dragons. Targaryen. Burn them all._ “The Mad King’s daughter?”

“King Aerys’s daughter, better get out of the habit of _that_ , too.”

“You’re going to bend the knee?” Jaime stumbled a step sideways, to where he could unobtrusively prop himself up against a chair.

Not unobtrusively enough. His father’s sharp gaze pierced him. “You’d better sit down, if you can’t keep yourself from behaving like a frightened maiden.”

“I’m fine –”

“You’re the colour of milk. If you faint, I certainly won’t catch you, and I won’t have that armour of yours putting scratches on my floor.”

Jaime sat. Tywin looked at him for a moment, and then poured wine into a goblet. He held it out. “Drink that.”

Numbly, Jaime took the goblet and drained it in one draught. “So, we surrender. We hand the Red Keep back to the daughter of a man who burned people alive and _delighted_ in their screams. We –”

“If you have some idea of how we can fight three dragons, ten thousand Unsullied, and more Dothraki than my sources can count, I’m all ears. No? Then we surrender, the very second I can manage to negotiate a way to do so that will keep my grandson alive and our family in Casterly Rock.”

Jaime blinked at him. “And how do you propose to do that? She doesn’t exactly have cause to bear our family good will, you know.”

“I know, thanks to you.” Tywin’s lips thinned. “If you’d stayed your sword instead of being such a glory-hound, the king’s death would have been at Baratheon or Stark hands, and we’d be in a much stronger position.”

 _If I’d stayed my hand, you and half a million people would be dead._ “I apologise for the inconvenience.”

“That’s exactly the sort of remark you need to learn to keep behind your teeth!” Tywin snapped. “We have an advantage. Your brother is Hand of the Queen –”

“ _Tyrion_?” It was a dream, surely, or more accurately, a nightmare. _Tyrion is Hand of the Mad King’s daughter … she has three dragons … no, it’s a nightmare, I am safely in my tent at Riverrun …_

“Tyrion. I underestimated him, it seems –”

“You always underestimated him –”

“Do not interrupt me! Since he is Hand of the Queen, we have a channel of communication. I have used it. Ravens have been exchanged, and an agreement has been reached. Queen Daenerys needs a marriage, in Westeros, to secure her position –”

Jaime was on his feet without knowing how he got there. “Not Tommen!”

“No, not Tommen.” Tywin looked him up and down. “ _You_ will marry Daenerys Targaryen.”

It _was_ a nightmare, from the deepest pits of the Seven Hells. “I can’t possibly –”

Tywin’s eyebrows arched. “To save your _nephew’s_ life? You most certainly _can_ possibly.”

“I killed her _father_ , have you forgotten that little detail? She’ll never agree –”

“She _has_ agreed. Your squires are packing for you. Your ship to Dragonstone leaves on the next tide.”

Jaime Lannister bent over and vomited on his father’s boots. 


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime goes to Dragonstone

 

_It’s a dream, a nightmare, none of this is real._ The slap of the cold salt air on Jaime’s face said otherwise, but he ignored that. _A dream. I am somewhere else, sleeping. I am at Riverrun, in my tent, asleep after we took the castle bloodlessly. Tomorrow I will wake and none of this will have happened, and perhaps I will ride out alone along the river and come across Brienne of Tarth …_

Jaime was at Riverrun as the ship crossed Blackwater Bay, he was at Riverrun as he climbed, awkwardly one-handed, down the rope ladder into the small boat that would take him ashore. He was at Riverrun as the rowers bent to the oars and he was at Riverrun as he vaulted over the prow of the boat and the sand of the beach crunched beneath his boots.

A vaguely familiar face was there to meet him. “Ser Jaime,” the older man said with a slight bow. “Welcome to Dragonstone. I’m Ser Davos Seaworth.” He offered his left hand, a courtesy many forgot and which Jaime appreciated.

He took the offered hand. “I suspect we’ve met, but I can’t recall the context.”

“I served King Stannis Baratheon as Hand of the King. Before that, I advised him. I came to King Robert’s court once or twice in that capacity, you may remember my face from there.”

“Ser Davos … the Onion Knight, yes?”

Davos smiled proudly. “That’s me, ser, yes.”

_The Hand of Stannis Baratheon … as if the Mad King’s daughter weren’t enough, another person on this island with reason to wish me dead._ Jaime took a deep breath. _None of this is real, remember? You are at Riverrun, and in the morning, you will wake, and you will ride out, and you will find Brienne of Tarth._ “And now you serve Daenerys Targaryen? That’s quite an about-face.”

Davos gestured to the path leading up towards the castle, and waited for Jaime to precede him before speaking. “I serve Jon Snow, the King in the North, and I’m here on his behalf, with his sister, the Lady of Winterfell, Sansa Stark.”

Jaime missed a step, caught himself, and turned to stare at Davos. “King in the North?” How much had he missed, this last little while? _Nothing, nothing, for this is just a nightmare. You are at Riverrun. Jon Snow is in the Night’s Watch._ And naturally, this nightmare would have Starks as well as Stannis Baratheon’s Hand to add to a Targaryen queen. 

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, the climb taking any breath either he or Davos might have spent in speech. _Riverrun._

And then a huge shadow passed over them, a leathery creak of wings, and Jaime looked up at the belly of a huge black dragon as it passed over them, the goat in one claw giving perspective on its monstrous size. As Jaime ducked away, the dragon threw the goat upwards, incinerated it with a blast of fiery breath, and ate it in one gulp.

“Alright, lad,” Davos said kindly, a hand on Jaime’s shoulder, and Jaime realised he was cowering against the stone wall bordering the path, and more, that he couldn’t command his legs to raise him. “It’s a sight, when you first see them.”

_Them. She has three._ He could imagine what those creatures would do, turned loose over a city, could imagine the heat, the screams, the fear and death. Red flames, rather than green, searing flesh and turning children to ash …

_No. This is a nightmare. You are not here. You are at Riverrun._

He was at Riverrun, and so he could stand on moderately steady legs, and keep climbing, all the way up to the castle doors. He was at Riverrun, and so he could walk into the great dark throne room, eyes steady on the small woman with white, white hair, could walk up to the foot of the throne without taking in how much of her father there was in her face and her eyes, could hear Davos announce him and could kneel without falling gracelessly, head bowed.

A woman’s voice, somewhere to his left. Not the Queen. “Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains, welcomes you to Dragonstone.”

“I thank her grace,” Jaime said, and because he was at Riverrun, his voice was moderately steady, and he managed not to vomit on the floor in front of the throne, but even at Riverrun, he couldn’t raise his head.

“Stand,” a clear, strong voice from directly in front of him. “Stand, Kingslayer, and look me in the eye.”

Jaime tried, he truly did, but his body would not obey him. “I’m afraid I can’t, your grace.”

“Are you so ashamed? Or am I truly so ugly?”

“Neither, your grace.” With an effort of will equal to any he’d needed in his life, Jaime raised his head and looked Daenerys Targaryen full in the face. She was beautiful, he registered with some surprise, with the part of him that was not at Riverrun. Beautiful, and terrible, and utterly serene, and completely implacable, and the sheer unexpectedness of her face shredded at his hold on _Riverrun, only a nightmare, I’m at Riverrun_ and his mouth dried to sand.

“You killed my father, the king you swore to protect.”

“I did, your grace.”

“Your grace –” His brother’s voice, and Jaime looked to his right and saw Tyrion, brow furrowed but otherwise seeming well, and that was something, that was a great deal, even in all this horror.

And from behind him, a woman’s voice, a voice he knew instantly, would know anywhere. “Your grace, may I speak?” said Brienne of Tarth.

“No,” Daenerys said. “I wish to hear from the Kingslayer himself. Why did you break your oath and kill your king?”

 “Tell her, Jaime,” Tyrion urged. “Tell her the truth.”

 “He had – how much do you know about your father, your grace?” Jaime’s voice came out barely above a whisper.

“I know he was called the Mad King. I know he was cruel.”

“Did you know he was ready to burn King’s Landing to the ground? Did you know he had caches of wildfire beneath the city, everywhere? Do you know he gave the order to set them off?” A stir, a murmur of voices behind Jaime. There were more people there than he’d realised, then. _Well, then._ “He wanted to burn King’s Landing to the ground rather than let it be taken. Half a million innocent men, women and children. _Burn them in their beds_ , he said. I prized my honour, your grace – but not that highly. I gladly sold it to buy their lives.”

The Dragon Queen was inscrutable as she looked down at him. “What would you do to the man who killed _your_ father?”

“Throw him a parade, probably.” The words were out before Jaime could stop them, and he cursed himself. _Put a leash on your tongue, you fool._

A flicker of something that might have been a smile crossed the queen’s face.  “Then why are you here, doing his bidding?”

“My nephew,” Jaime said, his voice cracking. “He’s just a child, your grace.”

“My niece and nephew were children.” The frost was back in her voice. “Younger than Tommen Baratheon.”

Jaime’s shoulders sagged. _Father’s bloody work will doom us all._ “Tommen had no part in that. Any more –” He paused, and then plunged on. “Any more than you had a part in your father’s cruelties, your grace.”

There was a long silence, and he lowered his gaze. _Well, father, I did my best_. Perhaps Tywin would use this distraction to get Tommen out of the city. Casterly Rock wouldn’t save him from dragons anymore than Harrenhal had saved Harren the Black, but take ship across the Narrow Sea and live, in obscurity but live, _live …_

Daenerys rose to her feet. “I, Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains, do pass sentence upon you, Ser Jaime Lannister, Kingsguard and Kingslayer.”

Startled, he looked up. “I’m no longer –”

“I do not recognise the right of Joffrey, son of the usurper Robert Baratheon, to dismiss members of my royal guard, Ser Jaime.”

Defeated, Jaime lowered his head again and waited for the blow to fall.

“You broke your oath, whatever your reasons were. You are hereby dismissed from the Kingsguard. However, I do find that my father, King Aerys, in ordering the death by fire of innocents loyal to his reign, did also breach his oath to the realm and to his subjects, including you. I hereby declare you innocent of any crime, given that you took his life to preserve other lives. Stand, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime made an enormous effort and managed to get almost to his feet, and then the room was moving sideways and the torches on the wall blurred and flared. Someone shouted something and there was a clatter of armour behind him, and then, as the floor tilted upwards at him, strong and gentle arms caught him.

“Your grace, he is unwell,” Brienne said by his ear.

“Clearly,” Daenerys said. “Have him taken to his chamber to rest.”

Jaime managed to turn his head, the world coming and going around him, to meet Brienne’s astonishingly blue eyes.   _I’m not unwell_ , he wanted to say. _Just terrified._

But from the soft and sympathetic expression on her face, Brienne already knew that.

Safe in her arms, Jaime closed his eyes and let the world go away.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys makes a decision

Fire and blood, the Targaryen words, green fire, dragon fire, blood on his sword and on the floor of the Great Hall and the king crawling, crawling … _Burn them all, burn them all_ … his own voice, cracked, harsh. _Stop! Stop, it’s over, it’s over!_

_Burn them all, burn them all,_ until he cut the Mad King’s throat and there was finally, blessedly, silence.

Blood, and fire, and fire come again, and dragons over King’s Landing and his son running, running, but who can outrun fire? _Burn them all. Burn them all_.

“Jaime, hush, there’s no fire, there’s no fire,” Brienne murmured to him, but the green fire raced towards her as well and crisped her freckled skin black as charcoal and he screamed and screamed, but he had no voice.

“I think I’m insulted.” Daenerys Targaryen’s voice. Behind Jaime’s eyelids she had all her dragons with her, huge, black, impossible. “Tywin Lannister proposes a one-handed middle-aged man who can’t look on me without falling into a fit as a match?”

“Your grace, I’m sure he doesn’t know,” Brienne said, and Jaime wanted to tell her to be careful, be careful of dragons and fire, because there was respect but also firmness in her tone.

“That his eldest son only has one hand? Is he also unaware his youngest son is a dwarf?”

“About the truth, the truth about your father, and what happened. Nobody knows – and if Tywin Lannister had known Jaime should have been praised instead of reviled, he would have made sure of it, for the sake of the Lannister name.”

A silence, then. “Why would he not tell his own father?” _There speaks a woman who has never met my father._

“Your grace, I know you’ve heard the story of _The Rains of Castamere_. Would you equip Tywin Lannister with wildfire?”

“That would seem … unwise,” Daenerys said, proving herself far more rational than her father had been.  “And this illness?”

“Ser Jaime guarded your father for years, all of them when he was younger than you are now. Stood silent and obedient while men and women and children were burned alive. Your grace, you are not your father, but you have the look of him. I think …”

“I understand. Will he overcome it, do you think?”

“He is a strong and honourable man,” Brienne said firmly. “If it is his duty to wed you, he will wed you, and make you a good husband.”

“And if I do not wish to be wed for duty?” Daenerys asked. “Do _you_ wish to be wed for duty?”

There was a silence, and when Brienne spoke her tone was carefully even. “I tried, your grace. No man would have me.”

“Then the men of Westeros are great fools.” And perhaps there was hope, for Westeros, because the warmth and admiration in the Dragon Queen’s voice testified to her good sense. “I will find you a match, Lady Brienne. Whichever nobleman of the realm you wish, once I have the Iron Throne.” Daenerys paused, and there was a smile in her voice when she spoke again. “But I suspect there is one more welcome than others.”

“Y-y-your grace.” _She sounds as if that’s true._ Jaime wanted to ask her who, exactly, but he was trapped in a prison of fire and pain.

“Tywin Lannister thinks that if he marries his son to me, his family will be safe. He is a very great fool. I do not kill children, unlike the Lannisters, and I do not hold the sins of the father against the sons. I forgave the Starks for their father’s role in the rebellion. I forgave and legitimized Gendry Baratheon, and _his_ father usurped the Iron Throne.” Footsteps, and the whispering of the hem of a dress across the floor.  “When your Ser Jaime awakes, remind him of my judgement. Tell him I am flattered by his suit, but I cannot accept it. I will marry Gendry Baratheon, and unite the claims of both lines. The Lannisters who are not presently on Dragonstone will publicly renounce all claim on the throne, repair to Casterly Rock, and remain there quietly on pain of death. Tywin Lannister, I attaint, but he may live to serve as his grandson’s advisor. Tyrion Lannister will serve as my Hand.”

“And Ser Jaime?”

“Ser Jaime is paroled to your custody,” Daenerys Stormborn said, and suddenly, to Jaime’s ears, she sounded like the young woman she was, barely past girlhood. _A young woman with three dragons_ , and the fire took him down.

 


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime wakes.

 

When the ocean of flames released him and tossed him up onto the shore, Jaime felt as empty and scoured clean as one of the shells Tyrion had used to pick up when Jaime had taken him to play in the shallows of the Sunset Sea.

He opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, somehow all wrong, the proportions off.

“Jaime?” Brienne said, and he turned his head to find her sitting by his bed. She was on his right, and both her hands were wrapped around his maimed stump.

“Brienne.”

She smiled. _I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile._ Certainly not like that, glowing and unselfconscious and as beautiful as the sun rising over the ocean. “Jaime, you’re alright. Tommen is alright, your whole family. They’re all safe.”

“How …?”

“Tommen is lord of Casterly Rock. Your sister and your father hold no title, but they live, and they advise him. He’s still wed to Margery Tyrell, with the understanding that children of the marriage are divided equally between the lines.”

Jaime sighed with relief. “So it worked. And when am I to be wed?”

“When you can stand,” Brienne said. “Queen Daenerys –”

“Already?”

“Last week,” Brienne said. “You’ve been quite ill. But when you are stronger, you’ll wed. Queen Daenerys wants to be certain of you.” She paused. “I told her she could be. That you were a man of honour. But …”

Jaime did his best at his old, mocking smile. “But I did kill her father, after all.”

Brienne nodded slowly. “You did kill her father, after all.”

“Well, I’ll learn to see her, and not her father, I’m sure. Although if I can’t do it before the bedding, things might be awkward.”

Brienne frowned. “Jaime. You’re not to be wed to the Queen. You’re to be wed to me.”

He sucked in one astonished breath. “Brienne …”

“I won’t hold you to it, of course,” Brienne said. “You can have whatever other woman – women – you want. I don’t expect children from you.”

Her voice was light, but Jaime could hear the pain in her tone, and he reached across his body and grabbed her arm. “I will not betray you, Brienne.”

“It wouldn’t be betrayal,” Brienne said. “The queen will marry the last Baratheon. The King in the North will marry a princess of Dorne. You’ll marry me. The realm will be tied together again by family, by blood, by weddings. Whatever bastards you might get won’t –”

“I will get no bastards,” Jaime snarled at her. “Because I will lay with no woman but my wife.”

Brienne nodded, and looked away. “Then I am truly sorry. But it was the queen’s choice.”

_Don’t be sorry, please, Brienne …_ But of course she was sorry. She was condemned to the likes of _him_ as a husband, a man she could never welcome into her bed, a man so stained by what he had done that even lying next to him would soil her own honour. “I will never touch you,” he promised her, and Brienne nodded, her brilliant blue eyes clouded by tears.  

 


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarth, and a wedding.

 

They wed in the sept at Evenstar Hall one very long week later.

_I am at Riverrun,_ Jaime had told himself every time he saw Brienne’s sad face, but it no longer worked. _I am at Riverrun, and tomorrow, when I wake, I will ride out along the river and find Brienne of Tarth_.

Except he had found Brienne of Tarth, hadn’t he? Found her, and been improbably blessed with the chance to spend every day of his life with her, and impossibly cursed with being the cause of the pain he could see in her brilliant blue eyes. No matter how hard Jaime tried to go away inside, she held him in place.

At least as the ship had borne them to Tarth, Brienne’s obvious misery at being forced to wed a man she could surely only despise was a sufficient distraction from thoughts of the Dragon Queen and her mad father.   _Once, she said she knew there was honour within me …_ but then, that had been before he had gone back to do his father’s bidding, back to his sister’s side.

_Before the Dragon Queen came to end it all_. White hair, and violet eyes, and was the madness of her father lying coiled within her? _Burn them in their homes, burn them in their beds …_ He dared not sleep, at night, although he dozed, sitting on the deck during the day from time to time. Once, a day short of their journey’s end, he woke from one such nap to find his shoulder braced against Brienne’s, his head on hers. She had drawn away as soon as she realised he was awake, muttering something about him toppling over. _But at least she doesn’t loathe my touch so much as to forget her kindness._

On the day itself, Brienne had her father to escort her, old Lord Selwyn Tarth, thin with age but taller than his tall daughter and with fierce blue eyes as keen as hers but with none of Brienne’s gentleness.

Jaime stood before the septon and tried not to flinch from the Evenstar’s glare. _It’s not my fault_ , he wanted to say.   _I would have courted her. I would have given her a free choice._

But it didn’t matter, did it? The Evenstar’s daughter was being forced into a marriage not of her choosing, and Jaime knew that if it was _his_ daughter in that position, he would hate the man, would swear to kill him …

Selwyn Tarth was glaring at him as if a gaze could stab a man fatally to the heart, and the maiden’s cloak was slipping from Brienne’s shoulders. Beneath it she wore a simple blue dress, high at the neck and with sleeves to her wrists. Every one of her scars was hidden and Jaime had a sudden mad urge to tear it from her, to show the people of Tarth who she was and what she had endured and achieved. Instead, he collected himself enough to raise the lion cloak and drape it around over her, but his cursed golden hand couldn’t grasp it and it was slipping, he’d be humiliated in front of all of them –

Brienne reached up and grabbed the fabric, pulled the cloak forward and fastened it herself.

 The septon cleared his throat expectantly.

“With this kiss I pledge my love,” Jaime said obediently. “And take you for my lady and wife.”

Brienne’s voice was steady and clear. “With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lord and husband.”

They turned to each other and brushed lips, dry and chaste.

Then there was the feast to get through, which Jaime forced himself to do quite sober. It wouldn’t help matters for the first impression he made on Tarth to be stumbling drunk. Beside him, Brienne was stiff and silent, shoulders hunched up and her eyes fixed on her food.

Finally it was done. There was no bedding, thank the Seven, although Jaime didn’t know if the Evenstar had forbidden it or Brienne had threatened bodily violence on anyone who attempted it, or both. Brienne simply rose to her feet, and held out her hand to him, and together they walked out of the hall.

And along the corridor, and up a flight of stairs, and another corridor, and all of it in silence. Brienne had dropped Jaime’s hand the second they were out of sight and he felt cold and alone as he followed her. Doubtless it was worse for her. He might be wed to a woman who despised him, but that was the worst of it: his bride was the best of women, strong and kind and good. Whereas poor Brienne was shackled to a husband with shit-dipped honour, a weak man cruel enough to shove a child from a tower, a man whose touch she loathed too much to tolerate for more than a second beyond what she must.

She stopped at the door to her chamber. “Good night, Ser Jaime.”

“Brienne …” Oh, gods, how was there a way to say it? “We should share a room, this night at least. The servants will notice. If Queen Daenerys finds out the marriage could still be annulled, she might be –” _Fire, and blood, and Evenfall Hall crumbling like Harrenhal and Brienne, brave Brienne, burning and burning …_

“Jaime.” Her voice was sharp, and when Jaime managed to blink the fire from his eyes he saw her frowning at him. He realised her hands were on his cheeks. “Jaime, come back now, come back to me.”

“Yes,” he managed to say.

“Are you alright?”

He tried to smile. “Of course.”

Brienne let go of him. “Don’t lie to me. This might not be a match you would have made, but you’re stuck with me, and I will have truth between us. There must be truth.”

Jaime blinked. _A match_ I _would have made?_ Stuck _with her?_ His wits were scattered and he scrambled after them. “The truth is, we dare not anger the Dragon Queen, Brienne, not even a little.”

“She’s not her father.”

“Nor was he, at the beginning, or so they say.” He shook his head. “I will sleep in a chair, or on the floor, but the servants must see my bed unused in the morning, and find us together in your chamber. We can’t risk otherwise.”

Brienne nodded. “Alright. Come in, then.”

It was not the welcome he might have dreamed of to Brienne’s bedchamber, but it was a welcome, and Jaime followed her through the door and closed it behind them.  “Shall I help you with your laces?”

“I can undress myself,” Brienne said.

Jaime nodded and turned his back, to give her privacy to do so. Fabric rustled, and he tried not to think about her baring her long legs and strong arms, about the small high teats he’d seen at Harrenhal or the thick bush of fair hair between her legs. She might be a maid, but Brienne was a warrior and had lived a warrior’s life: if he turned around with a cock-stand she know what it was. _And I promised her not to touch her._

“You can turn around,” she said at last. He did, and found her in the bed already, sheet and covers pulled up to her chin.  He glanced around, looking for a chair that might be comfortable enough for him to nap. “You may lie beside me,” Brienne said. “I won’t trouble you.”

For the second time she gave him pause. _Stuck with her. A match … trouble me._ After a moment, he went to sit on the edge of the bed and shucked his boots. He left the golden hand on, although it chafed, rather than offend Brienne with the sight of his stump, and lay down on top of the covers beside her.

“Good night, my lady,” he said, and closed his eyes, hoping to sleep and dreading to dream.

 


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime dreams, and wakes.

He was bathed in fire, inside and out, breathing it, drowning in it. _Burn them all_ , and Jaime had not been quick enough, had thought just that second longer – too long – about oaths and what they meant. Had been too late, and now he was burning, and they were all burning, and worst of all, Brienne, Brienne was burning and he could see her blue eyes through the flames around them both and he begged her, he begged her to stop burning, _Brienne, please, Brienne –_

“Jaime! Wake up!”

He opened his eyes and she was looking down at him, frowning, frowning but not on fire, and neither was he. Her hands were warm on his shoulders. _Even in the moonlight, her eyes are blue._

“Are you alright?” she asked.

Unable to trust his voice, Jaime nodded. Brienne let go of him and leaned back, still studying him.

“How long has it been this bad?”

“Since –” And _gods_ , his voice wavered and cracked like a child’s. “The Queen.”

“How can I help you?” Brienne asked quietly.

“It will pass.” Thankfully, his voice was steadier. “It did last time.”

“Last time?”

“After Aerys.”

Brienne was quiet a moment. “Would you like some water? Or wine? I can fetch either.”

Jaime’s throat was parched, but he shook his head again. _Bad enough that she has to tolerate me in her bed, and I disturb her sleep. I won’t make her wait on me, as well._  “I apologise for waking you, my lady. I promise, I’ll seek my own chambers on future nights.” The muck sweat of fear was drying on his skin, and he shivered as a light breeze stirred the curtains.

“Get under the covers before you take a chill,” Brienne said. When he hesitated, she scowled at him, and said with scathing courtesy, “My lord husband, if it please you, I would be obliged if you would join me beneath the blankets. Since I have no desire to nurse you through an autumn ague.”

_I wouldn’t have her fear I might break my promise to her …_ but he really _was_ cold, and so Jaime crawled beneath the covers and lay, as still as he could, at the very edge of the bed. Even so, he could feel the heat of Brienne’s body and craved it as he’d longed for few things in his life. He knew how strong and gentle her arms were, knew even without experience to guide him how it would feel to be held safely through the night, sheltered in her embrace.

But he had promised her he would never touch her, and he did his best to keep his oaths.

Jaime lay still and tried to ignore how his stump ached. His phantom hand was cramping, too. There was a particular misery in the combination of the two pains, both the consequence of his maiming and his mind’s stubborn inability to accept it. He would endure it, he would – Brienne didn’t deserve to have his ugly mutilation in her marriage bed, even if she had to endure _him_ in it –

Except when had Brienne shown the slightest revulsion at the sight of his truncated arm?

He sat up and began to wrestle with the buckles that held his golden hand to his wrist.

“Let me,” Brienne said, and he turned in surprise to see her raised on one elbow. The sheet had fallen down with her movement, revealing the scars left by the bear’s claws. Realising the direction of his gaze, Brienne moved to pull the sheet up again.

Jaime shook his head. “You don’t need to hide your scars from me, my lady.”

She let the sheet fall and sat up, her shift concealing more than many of the dresses he’d seen worn at court. “And you don’t need to hide yours from me. Give me your hand.” When he did, she unlatched his false hand quickly and deftly and slipped it free. The cloth sock that covered his stump was spotted with blood, as usual. Brienne frowned. “Shall I call the maester?”

“No need.” Jaime had spent years hiding his maimed arm, turning away if anyone came upon him  Even his squires had scarcely glimpsed it, but he felt no urge to yank free from Brienne’s gentle touch. “It’s usual.”

She touched the cloth. “May I?” Jaime nodded, and she worked the sleeve loose. Her breath hissed between her teeth at the sight of the blisters and sores beneath. “Jaime … this must hurt.”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t have to be!” Brienne let go of his wrist and rose from the bed. “Why don’t you leave the hand off, if it’s harming you so?”

“It’s useful. Now when I punch someone in the teeth, the teeth come off worst.”

Brienne searched through the chest at the foot of her bed. “Then wear it on the days you plan to hit people.” She came back to the bed and sat beside him, a small box in her lap. “You must be more careful. You could easily develop corruption in those sores, Jaime.” She opened the box, revealing salves and bandages. “Give me your arm.”

Her touch as she tended him was sure and tender, smoothing salve over the blisters and raw spots so softly it hardly hurt. Finally she wrapped his stump in bandages, tying them firmly and gently.

“Thank you,” Jaime said softly.

“You are my husband. It’s my place to tend your hurts.” She rose abruptly and put the box away. “And I’ve never liked that stupid golden hand, anyway.”


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day, and another night.

 

Jaime made sure the servants saw him leaving Brienne’s bedchamber the next morning by the simple expedient of ignoring the door that led directly to his and sauntering along the hall to his room in the full view of all. He gave the boy sweeping the floor a wink and a grin.

“Best tell my lady’s maids not to disturb her too early this morning.”

_There_. He shut the door of his own chamber behind him and stripped off his shirt, then his breeches and smallclothes. _That will run through Evenstar Hall by midday and if the Dragon Queen’s Master of Whispers is any good, it will reach King’s Landing by the end of the week._  The water in the ewer was cold, but he washed thoroughly and put on clean clothes.   _Now, what would I do if I truly were a new husband freshly fucked by his loving wife?_

Go back to her bed and tumble her again, was the answer, but he wouldn’t disturb Brienne’s rest, not when he’d already woken her from sleep with his childish nightmares. Rest himself, exhausted by a long night bedding his bride, but Jaime had no desire to sleep.

He sat by the window instead, looking out at the small slice of view it provided – mountains in the distance, green fields, sky. Jaime looked at it, this new home of his, and waited for someone to come and summon him to do something.

They didn’t.

He watched the sun track across the sky, the shadows shrinking and then growing again, and wondered why he wasn’t hungry.

When it was dark, he sought his bed.

“Wake up!”

A hand cracked across his face and jerked Jaime away from fire and death and the mad king’s voice. He opened his eyes to see Brienne staring down at him, a robe flung over her shift. _But I sought my own bed tonight …_ He looked beyond her to see the door of his bed-chamber open and crowded – servants, at least one guard, and to top it off, his bloody father-in-law.

“I – I –” His throat was raw.

“You’ve raised the household,” Brienne said gently. “Wait a moment.”

She went over to the door and Jaime could hear her talking softly, although he could make out none of the words. Then Brienne firmly shut the door in their faces and came to sit on the edge of the bed.

“What did you tell them?” Jaime asked hoarsely.

Brienne poured him a goblet of water and offered it to him. “That you lost your hand protecting my maidenhead, and the memory still troubles you. Much as Ser Burston woke the barracks many times after his son was run through in front of him during a fight against pirates. That you had chosen to sleep apart from me for fear of disturbing my sleep.”

Jaime took the goblet and raised himself on his right elbow to drink. Brienne blushed and looked away, and Jaime realised that his movement had dislodged the sheet covering him. From her face, Brienne hadn’t expected for him to sleep naked. _She held me in her arms, both of us naked as our namedays, and cared nothing for it._ But he had been swooning, and not her husband. He gulped the water, thrust the goblet back at her and the instant she took it, yanked the sheet back up to his chin. “Thank you for sparing my pride, my lady.”

Brienne shook her head. “I am your wife, Jaime. It’s my privilege to stand between you and the world, when needed.” Her thick fingers wound together in her lap, and she stared down at them. “I couldn’t wake you. You were screaming, and I couldn’t wake you.”

“You woke me.” His jaw still ached from the force of her blow.

“Jaime.” She looked back at him, her astonishingly blue eyes brimming with tears. “I’d rather you sleep in my bed, where I can wake you when your dreams start, than apart from me like this. I don’t expect you to be a husband to me, but allow me to be that much of a wife to you.”

“I am sorry to make such a poor sort of husband to you.” Jaime wanted to cover her twisting fingers with his own, but he resisted the urge.

“May I stay with you, tonight?” Brienne asked timidly. “You might be able to get more rest – there’s still hours before dawn.”

Jaime sucked in a surprised breath. “If you wish, Brienne. I would … I would welcome it.”

She gave a single decisive nod, rose, and went to the other side of the bed. Her fingers were on the sheet when Jaime cleared his throat.

“Brienne … I’m … I’m unclothed.”

Brienne paused. “Does that bother you?”

“Does it bother you?”

“I’ve seen you unclothed.”

Jaime found his mouth dry. “I recall.”

Brienne slipped beneath the sheets and lay primly on the far side of the bed. “Try to go back to sleep.”

Without his willing it, Jaime’s hand twitched towards her, narrowing the distance between them. He hoped that Brienne didn’t notice – and then she reached out and took his hand firmly in hers, and he thanked every one of the Seven Gods that she had. “Brienne.”

“I’m here, Jaime.” Her thumb stroked his. “Would you … would you like me to be closer?”

“Oh gods yes,” he blurted, and Brienne shifted across the bed towards him. Jaime could feel the warmth of her arm through the space between them and without meaning to he moved a little closer.

“Are you cold?” Brienne asked, solicitously.

And gods, there it was, an excuse, and Jaime seized it with both hands – the one he had and the one he’d lost. “Yes.”

Brienne wriggled a little, and closed the distance between them, and was suddenly warm and firm against his side. “Is that better?”

Jaime had to take a breath to compose himself. “Yes. That’s better.” It was very much more than better, it was intoxicating, Brienne’s strong body, her long limbs, pressed against him.

“Sleep, if you can,” Brienne whispered.

Jaime closed his eyes, not sure he could, but after a little while, lulled by Brienne’s steady breathing and the slow motion of her thumb against his, the world began to fray and drift away from him. He slid down into a soft darkness, and when green flames began to light it, strong arms drew him away from them and he was cradled and sheltered and comforted and the fire couldn’t touch him, couldn’t touch anyone, and he slept.  


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Morning.

 

Jaime drifted up slowly from the depths of sleep. It was so unexpected and so welcome to wake gently that he lingered in the sensation, floating in half-awareness: just awake enough to enjoy still being asleep. Arms, muscled and gentle, wrapped around him and held him close. Fingers ran through his hair, more tender than he could have imagined. His face was against a smooth column of a neck, the smell of soap and armour polish and skin filling his nostrils. All of it added up to a haven Jaime never wanted to leave.

Eventually, though, the shreds of sleep began to dissolve. Reluctantly, Jaime became aware that the arms that held him in his sanctuary were Brienne’s arms, that the fingers stroking his hair were Brienne’s fingers, that the neck he nuzzled into was Brienne’s neck.

_And I promised never to touch her_.

Worse, he realised that her nearness had stirred a response in his body. Brienne might be too much an innocent to realise it, yet, but if he stayed as he was, she’d inevitably become aware of how strongly he was tempted to break the promise he’d made her.

And gods, tempted was too weak a word for it. It took every ounce of Jaime’s self control not to thrust forward against her warmth, to let the heat and the friction and the nearness of her take over.

With an effort of will, he pushed himself away from the comfort of Brienne’s arms and rolled away from her.

“Jaime?” she murmured.

“Go back to sleep,” he said. “Brienne. Go back to sleep.”

She raised herself on one elbow, blue eyes still clouded with sleep. “Are you –”

“Seeking the chamberpot,” Jaime lied. “Go back to sleep.”

Brienne murmured something incoherent, and subsided.

It was not the chamberpot that Jaime needed, but enough privacy to relieve the urgent pressure in his balls. He kept his back to the bed in case Brienne hadn’t gone back to sleep, snatched his shirt and breeches from the chair he’d flung them on, and slipped through the door between his chamber and Brienne’s. He shut it and put his back against it so she wouldn’t unexpectedly come through.

And then he couldn’t resist another moment. His left hand wasn’t as adept as his right but as it closed around his cock all he could imagine was that it was Brienne’s hand, grasping him, stroking him. She’d look astonished, he imagined, with no experience to prepare her for the male response. Astonished, but quickly gratified at the realisation that _she_ was the reason for Jaime panting and groaning and thrusting uncontrollably against her grasp – her blue eyes would darken, her freckled cheeks would flush, her fingers would tighten around his cock –

Jaime groaned, and thrust against his fist, and spent with a force that made his knees weaken. He slid down the door and landed on the floor, gasping for breath. _Fuck. Fuck._ He’d frigged himself to completion many times before, but never to such a shattering conclusion. His own hand had been a poor substitute for Cersei, many times. _Never once a better substitute._

 He sat against the door for a while, half dozing, cock soft in his hand. It took Brienne rapping softly to rouse him. “Jaime?”

“A moment,” he said quickly, casting around for something to clean up his spilled seed with.

“Do you wish to break your fast with me here, or go down to the Hall?”

He paused. “As you prefer, my lady.”

“Here, then,” she said, and he heard her footsteps retreat.

Jaime made himself presentable, and then tapped on the door in turn. “My lady? May I enter?” At her assent, he opened the door and went through.

Brienne was also dressed, in the long tunic and breeches she found an acceptable compromise between men’s garb and women’s. There was bread, cheese, and fruit on the table, as well as cups of … Jaime eyed it suspiciously. It had _some_ resemblance to milk.

“Goat’s milk,” Brienne said. Her lips twitched at the look Jaime gave her. “There’s not much level grazing ground on Tarth, and cows don’t climb.”

Goat’s milk was … well, Jaime told himself that it was surely an acquired taste, and he could acquire it, due courtesy to the wife saddled with him and to her people – given time. The cheese was also goat’s cheese, but that he’d had before, and didn’t mind. The fruit was fresh, the bread new-baked: once he would have taken all of that for granted as his due and been offended by the simplicity of the repast, but that was before he’d spent all that time chained in a cage and half-starved. And all, including the bread, was in portions he could simply fork up and not have to work out how to break or tear. “Thank you for the meal, my lady.”

“You’re welcome,” Brienne said. “There’s always a hot meal in the Hall, usually pottage, when you prefer. I like the quiet, in the mornings, though. I can think through how I’ll spend my day.”

“And how will you spend today?” _Look at us_ , _pretending_ _to be domestic._ As if they were truly husband and wife.  

“I’m going to ride out to talk to the fisherfolk who harbour north of Evenfall. There are rumours of pirates, and I’d like to hear what they have to say. And then this afternoon, after I train the squires, I’d like to spar.” Her brilliant blue gaze flicked to his face, then away, and with a great effort of nonchalance, she said, “You’re welcome to join me.”

“I doubt I’d be much of a challenge,” Jaime said. “My skills are sadly lacking, these days.”

Brienne stared fixedly at her plate. “For the ride. Or the training. Whichever you please. Or not.”

There was no reason for her to make the suggestion, save she wanted to. Jaime was pleased to know he hadn’t irredeemably offended her, clinging to her in his sleep despite his promises to leave her in peace. “A ride sounds pleasant,” he said, and felt his heart beat a little faster when Brienne smiled.

It _was_ pleasant, despite the keen breeze blowing in from the sea. Jaime felt as if it was the first time he’d been out-of-doors in months, although it had been only days since the ship had brought him to Tarth. The sun was bright, and when Brienne turned their path to ride along the shore, the sea was almost as blue as her eyes.

 Brienne had ordered a palfrey saddled for him, _Brightblaze_ by name, and the horse had a smooth pace and a responsive mouth.

Jaime said as much, and Brienne nodded. “Father bought him for less than a third his value, because so many disdained the stripe on his face.”

“More fool them.” Jaime eyed Brienne’s own mount, a fine-looking bay mare, large and strong, that gave him an odd sense of familiarity.   _Surely not_. “My lady, is that …”

Brienne leaned forward to pat her mare’s neck. “The horse you gave me. She carried me to Winterfell and then to Castle Black. I had to leave her at Riverrun.” She paused. “I was pleased to greet her again when I came home.”

“I had her sent,” Jaime said. “I would have sent her North, to you, but it was … difficult.”

Brienne snorted gently. “Yes. There was rather a large war in the way.”

“You should put this fine fellow to her, when she’s next in season,” Jaime said. “They’re of a size, they’ll make strapping offspring.”

“They have already,” Brienne said. _Of course they have. Brienne got her good sense from somewhere, and Lord Selwyn must have seen the potential the moment he laid eyes on either of them._ “A yearling colt that bids to be of a size to carry even me without difficulty. I’ll take you up to the horse-fold on another day and you can see him.”

_Another day._ “I would very much like that.”

The fisherfolk in the small village tucked in one of Tarth’s many coves were of the opinion that the ‘pirates’ seen by their southern countrymen had been part of the fleet that brought Queen Daenerys to Westeros. “Easy to mistake one Ironborn ship for another,” one opined. “Plenty of them in that fleet, with the dragons flying overhead.”

Jaime fixed his gaze on the blue, blue waters of Tarth and put his mind in his bedchamber, a plate of fruit and cheese and bread in front of him, a bird singing outside the window …

“Jaime?” A warm hand touched his arm, and Jaime blinked, and came back to the smell of fish and the cry of gulls and Brienne’s blue eyes narrowed in concern.

“Yes,” he said.

“Let’s go back,” she said, and he nodded, and turned his horse, and followed her home.


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things slowly get better.

 

Days passed, a week of them, and then another. Brienne took Jaime to the horse-fold, to one fishing village or another, even up to the high pastures where they had to leave the horses and go on foot for the last. They sat and shared their meal with a thin and wiry goatherd and watched the astonishingly sure-footed goats leap from rock to rock, snatching out mouthfuls of grass where they found them.  

Tarth was as beautiful as Jaime had ever imagined, more beautiful than any of the books in the royal library could convey.  There were deep lakes whose surface was so still they reflected the sky back to it in perfect detail. There were rivers that made their way down from hidden springs deep in the soaring mountains, falling from cliff to cliff in a series of breathtaking waterfalls that sent spray high enough to raise rainbows. Brienne showed him the vales, tucked within the mountains, so shadowed and mysterious they seemed only partly within the world of men.  

In the afternoons, Brienne trained the squires, while Jaime watched on and occasionally wove his way between sparring pairs to offer his advice. Then, he and Brienne would spar. It had become apparent on the very first day that, for all the hours of practice Jaime had put in, he was no challenge to Brienne. She continued to offer, though, and Jaime persisted, earning bruises aplenty. In the second week, Brienne switched to lead with her left and Jaime thrashed her handily. Seeing her mistakes made him recognise them in himself in a way he hadn’t been able to before, and from then on he spent the hours Brienne trained the squires working through old drills, slow and precise. Boring, beginners work, that Bronn had likely never known and that Jaime had left behind in childhood, but he persisted.

At night they slept together – only slept, him clothed, her in a shift that covered her neck to ankle. When Jaime woke in the mornings, though, he often found they were wrapped around each other as lovers might be. Brienne continued to take no offence at the unwarranted intimacy and Jaime was unable to find the strength to insist they kept to their own chambers. It was torment, to find himself in her arms and have to resist the urge to draw her closer still, but it was a sweet torment in the wake of the gentlest rest Jaime had known in years. If he dreamed, it was so fleetingly that he could barely remember it on waking. Day by day he felt lighter and yet more solid, as if a great weight had been pressing him thin as a knight in a tapestry and as it lifted off him, Jaime could move and stretch and start to take his own shape again.

They broke their fast together, each morning, they shared the midday meal, they sat together at the high table in the evening. Jaime swore to himself daily that he would learn to love goat’s milk, but his oath had little effect. Fortunately, Evenfall Hall had a good well, deep and sweet, and Brienne took pity on him and had water served with every meal. In the evenings, there was ale, and wine, which Jaime took well-watered.

Lord Selwyn was cool and civil and watched Jaime with Brienne’s blue eyes, clouded a little with age. Jaime was careful to show the old man nothing but sincere courtesy, even when he chafed at the old man’s disapproval. _It will hardly help matters for him to realise I am as reluctant to this marriage as his daughter._ Some part of the man might be mollified to know Jaime hadn’t claimed his daughter to gratify his basest instincts, but Jaime doubted there was a father alive who’d approve of a man reluctant to wed his daughter.

Although, he was not reluctant, not truly, was he? Regretful of the circumstances, yes, that he had not had the chance to woo his lady and win her to him, but reluctant? His days were spent exploring the unfolding beauties of Tarth, his nights were a sweetness of comfort and kindness, and this was his life, now, this was all of the rest of his life, and he was too selfish to truly wish otherwise.  

Only that part of him that longed for Brienne’s happiness would not be quiet. She was tied to him, and could love it as little as he delighted in the fact. She was kind, and gentle, and good, and cared for him in his weakness and did all she could to make him welcome to Tarth, but that was Brienne. That was the woman who had held him safely aback a horse as wound-fever blazed through his veins, who had washed and nursed him and encouraged him to eat when he was too weak to even keep his own shit inside his arse.   

If he were a decent man, the knight he’d tried to be, Jaime knew he’d have kept a separate bed to his reluctant bride since their first night. But if he were the knight he’d tried to be, he wouldn’t be craven enough to wake screaming at long past memories. If he were the knight he’d tried to be, he’d take ship and head for the Silent Isle, bury himself in penitence and let Brienne chose a husband who pleased her.

He was not that decent man. He loathed himself for it, but Jaime couldn’t drag himself away from  Brienne. Not from the nights they shared, when her arms held him safe from everything he feared; not from the days which were as sweet as any he’d ever known. From moment to moment, he could forget that he must be costing her the hope of her own happiness, with a man whose honour was a burnished as her own. _If that’s possible_. From moment to moment, he could persuade himself that she was content, until he surprised a shadow in her beautiful blue eyes. If they’d been truly wed, he could have said _what troubles you, wife?_ If they had been truly wed, she would have brought her hurts and sorrows to him and he would have comforted her.

But they were _not_ truly wed, were they? Not by her choice, and not by his, and that was her hurt and her sorrow and it was why he was perhaps the only person who could give her no comfort.

So he asked about Tarth, and summoned up every amusing story he could recall, and told her tales of Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy in their prime, and counted as a triumph each and every time he made her smile.  


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An actual conversation, at last (slightly NSFW)

“These are getting better.” Brienne smoothed salve over his stump, fingers gentle on the healing blisters. “Have you thought about getting a lighter hand made? Or a hook, even?”

It was a nightly ritual, now, Brienne insisting Jaime remove his hand and present his maimed arm for her inspection before she salved any blisters or sores.

Jaime closed his eyes, and had to make an effort of will not to lean towards her, into her touch. “The gold one suits me fine.”

“Keep it for special occasions.” Brienne wrapped a bandage around his wrist and tied it. “Or leave it off, some days. I’m sure it’s the weight that causes most of the chafing.”

“It’s nothing.” Jaime opened his eyes and took his wrist back.

Brienne glared at him. “It won’t be nothing the day one neglected blister turns and –”  

He grinned at her. “And you’d be rid of me, so that’s –”

“ _Rid_ of you?” Brienne’s blue eyes met his, wide and shocked.

“You could choose a husband pleasing to you, without upsetting the queen.”

“Is that what you think?” Brienne asked. Her gaze searched his face, and it was hard to bear the innocence and strength in her astonishing eyes, but it would have been harder to look away from her. “That another husband would be _pleasing_ to me?”

“You are good,” Jaime told her. “And honourable. And all that is best in the world. And I am … everything that is worst. You should be wed to a man worthy of you.”

Brienne stared at him another second, and then looked down. “I _am_ wed to a man who is worthy of me.”

Jaime snorted. “You are wed to a man who comes to his marriage bed fresh from the bed of his own sweet sister. A man who was charged in the name of the Maid to protect all women who stood by while his Queen was raped. A man –”

Brienne’s hands were scorchingly hot on his cheeks as she framed his face and made him look at her. “Jaime. Jaime. Stop. _Stop._ ” The pain in her beautiful eyes dried his mouth. “Truth between us, Jaime. You promised me.”

Jaime managed to assemble a facsimile of his old sardonic self, raised his eyebrows and twisted his lips in a semblance of a smile. “My promises are hardly to be trusted.”

“I know how false that statement is,” Brienne snapped, sitting very upright, magnificent and terrifying. “Promise me truth, Jaime. And I promise you.”

He couldn’t look at her any longer, she was too bright, too honest, too good. He lowered his head, against the urging of her fingers. “I promise you, Brienne. No lies. Only truth.”

“Do you regret marrying me?”

“No,” Jaime said instantly. “I regret the circumstance.”

Brienne sucked in a sharp breath. “Because?”

“Because I would wish to court you, my lady. I would wish it to be your choice. I would wish you to want me, and not to be forced to have me.”

“Then why did you vow never to touch me?”

“I’ve never taken a woman against her will and I never will.” Jaime managed to raise his gaze to her face again. “I know I can’t be what you want as a husband. I can’t help barring you from a good man who might make you happy, but I won’t –”

“ _You’re_ a good man,” Brienne said sharply.

Jaime snorted. “We promised truth for truth.”

“You would still have your right hand if you hadn’t spoken up for me. You stood between me and a bear, unarmed. You saved half-a-million people, at the cost of your own honour. How can you imagine I wouldn’t be _proud_ to name you husband?”

The world shifted around him, and when it settled again it was in a different shape to before. _A match_ I _would have made … you’re_ stuck _with me … I am truly sorry …_ “Brienne. There is no woman I would rather have as my wife than you. If you were the last woman in Westeros, I would seek to win your hand. I would fight in tourneys to crown you the queen of love, I would fight a war for you. Not to win you, but to let you choose. When I said I would never touch you, I meant, never against your will. I –”

Brienne leaned forward and her mouth covered his and silenced him. Her kisses were clumsy and earnest and closed-mouthed and more arousing than Cersei’s practiced caresses had been for years. Jaime ran his fingers through her hair and gripped, gently, and drew back from her. “Let me,” he whispered. “Will you let me, Brienne?”

Her gaze was caught on his, brilliant blue, all the sapphires of the world in one woman’s eyes. “Yes.”

Every animal instinct he had urged him to drag her onto the bed and roll onto her, but instead he touched his lips to hers, softly, using his hand in her hair to keep her still. He traced her lips with his, slowly, before his tongue asked entry of her mouth. Even when she gasped, and opened to him, he only tasted the inside of her lips until she was sighing and soft against him and her own tongue shyly flickered out to meet his. “Brienne, Brienne, Brienne,” he whispered against her lips. “How did you not know?”

Brienne drew back a little. “How should I know? Looking as I do –”

“Being as you are,” Jaime corrected.  

“You never spoke.”

“I gave you my own sword.” The little distance between them was too much, and Jaime closed it to kiss her again. “How could I speak openly? My sweet sister …” A shudder shook him. “She does not like things being taken from her.”

“I was searching for Sansa Stark, and then sworn to her. I was already your sister’s enemy,” Brienne said. “If she couldn’t strike at me for that, she couldn’t have –”

Jaime laughed at that, and then pressed his lips together when he heard the ugly note in his own voice.  “She paid gold for every dwarf head delivered to her, in the hope that one of them would be our brother. None were. Some were not even dwarves, merely children. My father could contain her, but not control her. No-one could control her, no –”

“Hush, hush,” Brienne soothed, arms around him, and Jaime realised he was trembling. “She can’t hurt me. She can’t hurt you. Daenerys rules, now, not Tommen. It’s alright. It’s alright.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against her neck.

Her fingers carded through his hair. “Don’t be. You are my husband. I am your wife. I want to know what troubles you. I want to help you.”

And Gods help him, but he was suddenly about to weep as he hadn’t done since childhood. “And will you tell me your troubles?”

“I have only one,” Brienne said quietly.

“And that is?”

“I have feared that my husband loathed being wed to me.”

“Set your mind at ease, then.” The tears that had threatened receded, and Jaime raised his head and kissed her cheek. “Your husband finds more comfort in your arms than he has known for many years.”

 


	11. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW, aka, The Smut That Was Promised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have written this as if my favourite chapter, the one where Brienne defends the children at the inn, happened in the show, just off-screen, although I have not gone with the face-chewing because I can't work that into show canon (just as I will never stop believing that show Jaime did revisit Harrenhal and did smack Connington around with his golden hand)

 

Azure days and sapphire nights followed, more peaceful than Jaime could remember since childhood.

_Also more frustrating._ Brienne would let him kiss her, and he flattered himself she enjoyed it, given the way her lips would part eagerly for him as she leaned into his embrace, how quickly she would become flushed and breathless. When his hand found her teats, she leant into his touch.

But when his hand slid down to her hips, she tensed and pulled away.

Jaime told himself it was a maiden’s shyness, and that he could be patient, but day followed night followed day and Brienne’s skittishness didn’t diminish. He had never taken a maid to bed – had never taken anyone to bed besides Cersei – but men talked, and he’d had squires who boasted of the women they’d deflowered. Brienne’s continued, and undiminished, fear of his touch didn’t jibe with what Jaime had overheard them saying.

Fear began to gnaw at him. Had she been attacked? Hurt?   _She would tell me. She would tell me her troubles._

But would she, though? Would a woman tell anyone, even a husband, that she had been violated, if she could avoid it? _I wouldn’t._ There were stories of men buggered bloody as prisoners or during a city’s sack, although not as many as those of women raped. _If it happened to me, I would take my revenge, if it took a lifetime … but admit it?_

Jaime chose to raise the subject during daylight, a long way away from the bedchamber.

They sat side by side on the hill overlooking the horse-fold, sharing cheese and apples and bread, watching the foals frolic and the yearlings prance.  There was no-one within earshot – there was no-one within _sight_ , the grooms and boys all being busy that day with a foaling mare. “Brienne,” Jaime said softly. “Will you tell me something, if I ask?”

He felt, rather than saw, her glance. “Of course.”

“Did someone hurt you?”

Brienne stilled. “Many people,” she said at last. “I have scars.”

“ _I_ have scars,” Jaime said. “We all do. I mean, though … you were spared Vargo Hoat and the Bloody Mummers.”

“ _You_ spared me that,” Brienne said quickly.

“But other times?” Jaime asked. “After I … sent you alone into what was left of the Seven Kingdoms?”

Brienne’s hand closed over his. “No. Men tried it. But no.”

“And?”

“They’re dead, what do you think?” The exasperation in Brienne’s voice made Jaime laugh, and mostly with relief.

“I feared …” He turned his head and kissed her cheek, and despite the fact that there was no-one in half-a-mile, Brienne blushed red and ducked away from him. “You shy from me, Brienne. I feared that it was because you had been harmed.”

“Nearly,” Brienne said. “I was losing the fight.”

“Against who, the Mountain?”

Brienne shook her head. “There were seven of them.”

_Seven._ Seven untrained men, Jaime could have taken, when he had two hands. _Seven men who could fight?_ Four, five, six perhaps … _Provided no more than one or two could_ really _fight._ “And how did that happen?”

“They were going to rape her,” Brienne said. “I couldn’t …”

“ _You_ couldn’t,” Jaime agreed, and had to find her chin with his hand and turn her face to his so he could kiss her properly. “Who? Sansa?”

Brienne shook her head. “She was an orphan girl. At an inn. She was taking care of the others. The children.”

_Seven men. She fought seven men, for a girl she wasn’t sworn to_. But that was what a knight would do, wasn’t? _Protect the innocent … protect all women …_ Jaime pressed his forehead to hers. “How did you defeat them, these seven men?”

“I only slew two,” Brienne said, as if that was shameful. “Gendry killed the third, and then others came.”

“Gendry?”

“He’s Gendry Baratheon, Prince Consort, now,” Brienne said. “But then, he was a boy trying to stay alive and keep others alive. He shoved a spear through the back of the head of the man who would have killed me.”

“My brave wife,” Jaime said. “Where is this girl, now?”

“The inn is hers,” Brienne said. “I asked.”

_Of course you did._ He kissed her again. “So you don’t fear my touch because it reminds you of pain?”

“I don’t fear your touch,” Brienne said quickly.

“But you do,” Jaime said. “You flinch from me.”

“Not from … not …” Brienne flushed bright red, and tears brimmed in her eyes. “I am ... I …”

Jaime kissed her again. “We are man and wife. Will you lie with me tonight?”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered back.

“Then let me please you. Nothing more.”

Brienne drew back a little. “I am not such a wanton as to –”

Jaime closed the distance between them and silenced her with a kiss. “There is nothing wanton in a lady finding pleasure in her marriage bed.”

“My septa said –”

“Your septa was a fool, then.” Jaime traced her lips with his tongue and exulted when Brienne sighed and melted against him.  

_Too soon_ , he realised, when she pushed against his chest and put distance between them. “Jaime. I am … built wrong. Not like other women.”

“You are stronger, and taller,” he said. “I can’t be sorry for that, for without it we would never have met.”

Brienne shook her head. “No. I … those who say I am half a man. They’re right. I’m not … I’m wrong. Down there.”

Jaime sorted through a thousand things he could say to that, from _what_ _do I care if I’m like Renly_ to _how wrong, exactly?_ None of them were right, with Brienne’s blue eyes gazing up at him, brimming with tears. “Brienne. We are wed. I am your husband, you are my wife. Nothing else matters. I have one hand. Does it matter to you?” She shook her head. “Then why should anything about you matter to me?” Brienne was still stiff and awkward against him, and so Jaime kissed her forehead, and her closed eyes, and her cheeks. “Tell me, wife. Tell me what troubles you, tell me truth.”

Brienne turned to lean her head against his chest. “I am … a woman doesn’t take the same pleasure as a man, my septa told me. But I have … perhaps it’s why I’m more a man than a woman. My body tried to grow a man’s part. It’s not large, but … ”

Jaime chuckled, and Brienne raised her head to glare at him. “Brienne, I’m not mocking you,” he said quickly. “I’m mocking your septa, and wondering if there are any of Littlefinger’s boys left in King’s Landing I can commission to teach her the error of her ways. May I touch you?”

“You _are_ touching me,” Brienne murmured.

“As a husband touches a wife.” Jaime pressed her back gently, and Brienne allowed him to lay her down on the grass, though she was shaking a little and wouldn’t meet his gaze. Jaime leaned over her. “Brienne, my wife. Will you trust me?”

“I have for a long time now,” Brienne whispered.

Leaning on his right elbow, he slid his hand down to her breeches and inside them, slowly, kissing her all the while, tracing the inside of her lips with his tongue. When she flinched, he paused, running his fingers along the soft skin above her curls, murmuring endearments against her lips. _There you go, there’s my wife, let me, I’ll take care of you, let me …_

She relaxed into his touch, moaning softly as his fingers came closer to their destination, apologising in the next breath. “I can’t help … I’m sorry … oh …”

“You don’t need to help it,” Jaime whispered. “This is right. You are right.” His fingers slipped beneath her smallclothes to find the thick curls between her legs and part them. Brienne whimpered and writhed against him. “That’s it, my love, that’s it. Let me. This is a woman’s pleasure, let me give it to you.” She was wet and open to him and when Jaime slipped a finger inside her Brienne gasped and arched up against him. “There you are, there you go.” He worked her gently, slowly, until the flush in her cheeks spread to her neck and she was pushing restlessly against his touch.

“Jaime,” Brienne whispered. “I can’t – I need – Jaime …”  

“More?” he asked. “Less? For me to stop?”

She grasped his shoulders. “Don’t stop, please, don’t stop.”

Two fingers inside her, his palm hard against her bud, and Brienne was arching against him, breath whining in her throat, arms hard around him and fingers digging into his back hard enough to leave bruises.

“Please,” Brienne gasped, rigid against him, squeezing his fingers to the point of pain. “Please!”

And then she was shuddering head to foot and bucking against him and it took all Jaime’s strength to hold her until she went limp against him.

And, disconcertingly, began sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it –”

Jaime wrapped his arms around her and held her close, his own desire slackening at her distress. _Just as well. I won’t have her truly for the first time in a field._ Perhaps the third time, and many times thereafter, but not the first. “You weren’t supposed to, Brienne, that was right, you are right, hush. That was how it’s supposed to be, I promise you. You did nothing wrong. You are nothing wrong. Hush.” He smoothed her hair with his good hand and murmured reassurance until she calmed. “I will thrash your septa, I swear it. I think my skill with my off-hand is enough. Unless she is of the Faith Militant, in which case I might need your help.”  

Brienne snuffled with laughter, and thumped his arm half-heartedly. “Don’t talk such nonsense.”

“But talking nonsense is what I do best, remember?” She was relaxing against him, and Jaime shifted a little so her head was against his shoulder. “It used to be nonsense and swordplay, but now nonsense is my only –”

Brienne raised her head and kissed him fiercely. There was nothing of passion in it, no hunger: only love, only a tenderness too keen to be expressed gently. “You are truly not disgusted?”

“I am truly delighted,” Jaime said honestly, and she blushed crimson and hid her face against his shoulder again. “The marriage bed is not meant for a woman’s pain, Brienne, though some men might not know it. I am pleased to be able to please you.”

“And you?” Brienne directed the question to his shoulder. “How should I please you?”

“We will please each other,” Jaime promised. “But not on this hillside.”

Brienne raised her head, and stared and coloured. “We are –”

“Well away from prying eyes,” Jaime said.  “It’s alright, we’re alright. But I will take you as my wife for the first time in our bed, Brienne.” He kissed her pink cheeks. “Perhaps I will take you on this hillside, or in the armoury, or in the stables, but –”

“In the stables!” Brienne sounded outraged.

He kissed her again. “In all the places I can imagine. But the first time, my lady wife, will be where it should be – in your bedchamber.”    



	12. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Jaime has a plan ...

Brienne was shy as a blushing maiden all the way back to Evenstar Hall. _A blushing maiden raised in a tower with only virgin girls around her._ Jaime would send that withered Septa of hers to the Silent Sisters, if it was the last thing he did. It took the sight of the new foal wobbling around his mother for her to forget herself enough to smile, and it wasn’t until they’d spent a good hour in the training yard that she could meet his eyes.

She beat him, again, but not so handily as she had on their first encounter.

“You’re getting better,” she said, offering her hand to pull him up.

Jaime clasped her fingers and let her pull him to his feet. “I have to, don’t I? Do I remember something about how you’d only wed a man who could best you with a sword in your hand?”

Brienne looked down. “And yet it seems I have.”

“I won’t make an oath-breaker of you, Brienne. It may take me ten years, but I’ll prove the truth of your words.” Their hands were still joined, and Jaime pulled her closer. “But I’ll make you my wife truly tonight, Brienne”

_That_ set her cheeks blazing once more. Brienne couldn’t even look at Jaime during the evening meal, which had Selwyn Tarth shooting dark glances at him. Jaime gave the Evenstar his most innocent smile, which was not particularly innocent, all things considered, and didn’t seem to improve his good-father’s disposition one jot.

When the meal was over, Jaime slipped his fingers around Brienne’s elbow and tugged her closer. “Let’s visit the baths.”

Brienne glanced at him, cheeks blazing, and nodded mutely.

The baths at Evenstar Hall were in a long, low building slightly apart from the main keep. Unlike Winterfell, they had no natural hot spring to feed them, but the spring that fed it was strong enough to force the water through pipes that ran past fires that burned day and night. When Jaime held the door for Brienne and stepped through after her, steam rose from the surface of the water in the tubs.

He latched the door behind them. “May I help you disrobe, my lady?”

“No, I – I’m able –”

Jaime moved to stand behind her, his hand gentle on her shoulder. “May I help you disrobe, Brienne? I would like to.” At her mute nod, he reached around to the laces of her shirt.

He took his time, drawing the threads slowly through the eyelets, scolding her softly when she grew impatient and tried to replace his own clumsy fingers with her own. He let his fingers trail over her skin as he undid each fastening, and by the time Jaime had loosened enough to draw her shirt down and press his lips to her shoulder Brienne was leaning back against him, sighing softly with each caress. He slid his right arm around her waist, trailing kisses up her neck to catch her earlobe between his lips, and wordlessly encouraged her to let him take her weight as he undid the last loops and slipped her shirt completely off.

For a while – _an hour? A minute? A day?_ – he held her like that, relishing how soft her skin was between the scars and the way she leaned into him, trusting him to hold her up. _Brienne, Brienne, Brienne_ , he whispered against her skin, and then, suddenly impatient, unlaced her breeches and knelt to draw them down.

Her boots were an obstacle, but she helped him strip them from her feet so he could get her breeches and then her smallclothes off and then she was gloriously naked and for a moment all Jaime could do was sit back on his heels and look up at her.  There had been a time when he had found her unbeautiful, and perhaps she still was: scarred and muscled, her body shaped to the sword rather than for bedding. Jaime couldn’t stop looking at her, though, from her long, muscled legs, to the scars that striped her torso and circled her neck, to her glorious blue eyes. When Brienne blushed, and moved to cover herself, Jaime caught her hand in his and used his stump to stop her other hand. “Let me see you. Please, let me look at you.”

Brienne blushed harder. “Why?”

“Because it delights me,” Jaime said, and Brienne turned a fierce red, but she stopped trying to hide from him.

He could have leaned forward and pressed his mouth against her, and by the Seven, he wanted to, to taste her, to feel her, to know the sounds she’d make as his tongue stroked her and how long it would take him to bring her to the point where her knees would no longer hold her weight, until she gripped his hair and forced his face against her and sobbed with pleasure.

_Another time._ Gods be good, many other times. When his bride wasn’t a trembling maid. “Will you step into the bath, Brienne?”

She nodded, and raised one long pale leg and then the other to step over the lip of the nearest tub. Jaime unfastened his golden hand, divested himself of his own clothes as quickly as he could – so quickly he tore the laces on his breeches – and slipped in beside her.

Brienne glanced at him. “There’s another tub,” she murmured, and then ducked her head as if she’d said something scandalous.

Jaime grinned at her, and slid through the water to be close by her side. “This one suits me fine.”

Brienne blushed again, but she didn’t move away. “I …”

“Don’t give up,” Jaime said. “You were doing so well.”

Brienne covered her face with her hands. “Jaime …”

He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “I will teach you to flirt with me, I promise. But it will take time. Pass me the soap.”

Brienne managed to lower her hands long enough to find the soap in its hollow and pass it to Jaime. It was good soap, soft, and it lathered easily when he ran it along her arms and around her collarbone. It was not like Harrenhal, when neither of them had the chance to wash for weeks: Jaime had no need of brush or even cloth, only his fingers and the soap, rubbing patterns on Brienne’s arms, her legs, her belly, until finally he was stroking her small, high teats and then between her legs and she was gasping and whimpering.

Then he stopped. “Will you wash _me_ now, Brienne, my wife?”

Clear blue eyes stared at him, astonished. “Wash you?”

Jaime leaned back against the edge of the tub, arms spread. “Yes.” The bath was only just deep enough to cover his arousal and from the shy glance Brienne sent at his lap, not sufficient to conceal it. “I have been aback a horse and training in the yard today. Will you do a wife’s duty and wash the day from me?”

Brienne caught upper lip between her teeth and nodded. Still, it was another long moment before she picked up the soap and moved closer to him.

Her touch was gentle, but clumsy. _No_. Not clumsy, just inexperienced. Brienne worked lather from the soap and swiped it across Jaime’s skin in wide arcs. _She might as well be bathing Podrick_. But it was enough: he hardly needed her to arouse him further, but each pass of her hands was further proof to Brienne that she had the right to touch him. He was her husband; she was his wife. _Know me. Learn my skin, as I will learn yours. Touch me, as you will. I am yours, as you are mine._

Proof that she had the right to touch him, and proof that he wanted her to do so.

Jaime let his head rest back against the lip of the bath. When Brienne’s hand slid across his chest, Jaime sighed and leaned into her touch. When her fingers brushed the inside of his thigh, he moaned and arched upward. Each time Brienne blushed, and drew back, but a little less each time. After a while she was barely hesitating, her soapy hands stroking down his legs and then up again, firm and sure. Jaime had to think very hard about what the Evenstar had said about Tarth’s grain stores and whether apples were better stored above or below ground and which particular type of fish was more plentiful in the autumn than the spring to keep from seizing her hands and putting them directly on his cock.

“Lean forward,” Brienne instructed, and when Jaime did she slid behind him and began to soap his back. Her touch was confident now, slow and firm, easing tightness in muscles he wasn’t aware of before he felt it release. More on the left side, where he’d pushed himself in drills and practice. Jaime didn’t have to exaggerate his groans of satisfaction as Brienne’s strong fingers dug hard into the back of his shoulder.

“That’s good,” he said, unnecessarily, because Brienne’s continued attention to the spot told him she could tell how much he liked it.

“You might be training too hard,” Brienne murmured.

“That’s not what’s too hard,” Jaime countered, and would have bet a million gold dragons that Brienne blushed. “Enough. I’m clean, and if you keep on, we won’t make the bedchamber.” He turned and kissed her, briefly, for that was as far as he could trust his self-control. “Out of the tub, my wife, or I’ll have you here and now.”

Brienne didn’t move. “Would that be bad?”

Jaime lowered his head to kiss her neck. “Is that something you’d like? For me to take you in this bathtub? Water splashing over the edge with every thrust? The water as warm as my hands on you, as you floated against me and –” Brienne gave a throaty moan and Jaime chuckled. “You would, wouldn’t you? So would I. The opportunity we missed at Harrenhal …” He traced her neck with his mouth until he could take her earlobe between his lips. “We will, Brienne, I promise. But not tonight. A bride’s first bedding should be in her bedchamber. So out of the bath, my wife.”

They dried each other – perhaps taking longer over it than was entirely necessary – and dressed. Jaime tucked his golden hand under his arm and held out his hand to Brienne. She took it unhesitatingly.

“Come, Brienne,” he said softly. “Let’s go to bed.”


	13. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW aka The Bang That Was Promised

 

When they reached Brienne’s bedchamber, Brienne dropped Jaime’s hand and went directly to the candle on the table by the bed, stooping to blow it out.

“What are you doing?” Jaime asked.

She turned, frowning. “Wouldn’t you prefer it to be dark? My Septa said my husband would want it to be dark.”

“The Seven Hells take your Septa.” Jaime opened the door again and raised his voice to shout for a servant. When a boy came running, he said, “Fetch a dozen candles, at least. Beeswax, not tallow. Be quick about it.” The lad nodded, and ran off, and Jaime turned back to Brienne. “Don’t extinguish one more flame.”

She stood twisting her fingers together. _Nervous all over again_. Jaime waited until the boy came sprinting back with the candles, took them from him, and firmly closed the door.

“Help me with these,” he said, setting the candles on the desk and picking up one to kindle the wick from the nearest flame.

Brienne came to take another. “We don’t need _all_ –”

“We do,” Jaime said blithely. “I will see my wife, Brienne.” He dripped enough wax on the desktop to keep the candle secure and set it upright, then chose the next. “Don’t you want to see me?” Brienne blushed scarlet and dropped the candle she was lighting. She scrambled it to snatch it up before it could scorch the floor. Jaime grinned. _I’ll take that as a yes._

They got the candles lit, secured with their own wax to desk and table and the mantle over the fireplace. The room blazed like a feast-day. Brienne cast a nervous glance from flame to flame, wrapping her arms around her. _Ah, Brienne, I will teach you not to be shy of me, in time_. They had years ahead of them – _years_ , for the first time Jaime truly understood that and it stopped his breath for a few heartbeats. _Years._ Thousands of mornings waking in her arms, thousands of days watching her face as she thought through the different dilemmas Tarth presented her with, thousand of nights in her bed. _Years._

He cleared his throat, and tugged at the laces of his shirt. “Will you help me with this?”

“Of course.” Brienne immediately dropped her arms and came to help him. Jaime dropped his hand and let her undo the fastenings, and then raised his arms. A moment’s hesitation, and then Brienne drew his shirt over his head. When the cloth cleared his face, Jaime could see that Brienne was looking down and away from him, cheeks pink.

“Brienne. You have the right to look at your husband.” Her took her chin in his hand and raised her face. “I hope you’re pleased with what you see?” Her gaze skittered across his shoulders and chest and her blush blazed brighter. It burnt even brighter still when Jaime released her chin, took her hand and placed it on his chest.  “It’s alright, Brienne. Go ahead.”

Slowly, she raised her other hand and touched his shoulder. Both trembled, until she pressed them more firmly against Jaime’s skin. He stood still, against every urge to pull her to him, as she ran her hand slowly over his chest. His breath hissed between his teeth as the callouses on her hands caught on his nipples and Brienne stopped. “Did I hurt you?”

“The opposite,” Jaime said.  

She did it again, pressing harder. “That pleases you?”

“Fuck, yes.” He leaned into her touch.

“What else would please you?”

“For you to kiss me.”

“How would you like me to?” Brienne whispered, her hands moving down to explore the planes of his stomach.

“How it pleases you, Brienne.”

She bit her lip, and slid her hands up to Jaime’s shoulders and then to his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she angled his head and pressed her lips to his. After the first shy second, it was no modest, maidenly kiss, but fierce, her tongue demanding entry to his mouth, her teeth scraping his lip. Jaime wrapped his arms around her and pulled her as close as he could, answering hunger with hunger, heat with heat. It was impossible to tell whether Brienne drew him back towards the bed or he pushed her forward, but they stumbled together to fall across the mattress. Jaime trod off his unlaced boots and tore at Brienne’s shirt, and she gasped against his mouth and helped him, yanked at his breeches and pushed them down. She was bold now, her hands tracing his legs and his rump, pulling him to her, and for a moment Jaime forgot himself enough to rock into the cradle of her body, need blazing through him.

_A maiden. She’s a maiden._ He found enough self-control to raise himself off her a little. “Your breeches,” he panted, and Brienne unlaced them and pushed them down. She’d shed her boots at some point, and Jaime slid down the bed to draw her breeches off completely, smallclothes with them. He struggled free of his own, and then crawled back up to spread her legs with his shoulders and press his mouth to her sex.

“Jaime!” Brienne jerked away from him and in the next heartbeat pressed upwards. “Jaime, I – what are you – Jaime!”  

He raised his head. “Do you want me to stop?”

Brienne’s blue eyes were dark and glazed. “Is this proper?”

Jaime grinned. “Between husband and wife? Most certainly.”

Brienne let her head fall back against the pillow. “Then don’t stop. Definitely, don’t stop.”

He slipped a finger inside her, licking and suckling, and then another, gentle and firm. It was only moments before Brienne’s fingers were laced his hair, holding him against her, and she was crying his name as if it was the only word in the world. Her legs closed hard around him and she rocked up, whimpering, and then shuddered convulsively, long, wracking shivers that left her limp and dazed.

Jaime raised himself up the bed enough to take her in his arms. “There, how was that? How are you, my wife?”

“Good,” Brienne mumbled against his neck. “Good.”

“Still glad to be wed to me?”

She laughed a little. “Is this marriage? Because I like it.”

“Not every marriage, perhaps,” Jaime said. He pressed his lips to her hair. “But ours, most definitely.”

 “And you?” Brienne shifted a little, her thigh rubbing against his cock-stand. “You said we’d be truly wed. You said I’d please you. How shall I do that … husband?”

Jaime held her hips with his hand and his stump. “If you keep doing that, you’ll please me well before we’re man and wife.”

She stilled. “What should I do?”

Jaime slipped his arms around her, and rolled them over so she was on top of him. “Do you want this? Truly? Because right now, you are a maiden, and you can still seek an annulment.”

Brienne straddled him. “And if I don’t want an annulment? If I want to be wed to you from this day until my last day?”

Her sex was hot and slick against his manhood, and Jaime had to struggle to follow the thread of her words, of his. “Do you want this, Brienne?”

She rocked against him. “I want … you. Jaime. I – Jaime. Jaime, please.”

“Lift up a little.” He urged her upwards with hand and stump, and she raised herself.  “Here, now.” He fit himself to her. “Ease down. Slowly.”

She did as he instructed, lowering herself a little, then a little more. “Like this?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t have said anything else if his life depended on it. She was hot and wet and tight around him and even better, as Brienne sank down she bit her lip and sighed with pleasure. _Let her find it good. Let her want me._ Who did he pray to? The Maiden, the Mother? Did it matter? _Let me please her._ “Yes. Yes.”

Resistance, then, and Brienne hesitated. “I – does it hurt you?”

“Your maidenhead,” Jaime managed to gasp. “There might be – pain.”

Brienne set her jaw, and pushed her hips downwards. She hissed a little and then was seated firmly against him. “Oh. _Oh_.”

“Alright?” Jaime asked, trying to disengage his mind from his cock, which was urging him to thrust up into her warm depths, thrust hard and fast.

“Yes,” Brienne said. “It feels … strange. And good. Right.” She squirmed a little and Jaime grabbed her hip with his one good hand.

“Be still a moment,” he panted. “Please.”

She stopped moving. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, nothing,” Jaime said quickly. “I’d just – like to enjoy this for longer than a few heartbeats.” _Lannisport, Sarsfield, Golden Tooth_. _Southwards, Tarbeck Hall, Crakehall, Old Oak_.  He managed to slow his breathing and his heart, at least a little.

Brienne was looking down at him with a slight frown. “Are you sure I didn’t do anything wrong?”

Jaime smiled, and reached up to cup her breast. “No, Brienne.” He ran his thumb over her nipple. “It’s only that I’d like this to be more for you than your over-enthusiastic husband finishing as soon as he has the bliss of being inside you.”

She blushed. “It pleases you?”

“It pleases me. I think I can withstand it if you move, now.” He took her hip again and guided her upward and down again.

Brienne caught on quickly and began to ride him, and first hesitantly and then with increasing urgency and abandon. Jaime slid his hand across her belly and down to stroke her nub and Brienne cried out, loudly enough to be heard by half of Evenfall Hall. She tightened around him. “Jaime, Jaime, I’m, I’m –”

“Yes. Please, Brienne, I –”

With one more loud cry she went over the precipice again. Jaime went with her, spilling with three shuddering thrusts, seeing stars and knowing nothing but Brienne pulsing around him.

She lowered herself down to lie on his chest and Jaime wrapped his arms around her. It took him a moment to summon enough coherency to speak. “Are you alright?”

“Mmhmm,” Brienne said.  “You?”

“Much better than that,” he said honestly, and Brienne chuckled. “Just think. Not only are we allowed to do that whenever we like, we’re _obliged_ to do so until we’ve provided Tarth with a few heirs.”

“I didn’t know it would be like that,” Brienne said. She tucked her head against his shoulder and pressed a kiss to his neck. “Is it always like that?”

“I’m not the man to ask,” Jaime said. “I’ve only ever slept with one woman.”

The words were out before he realised and of a sudden there was a third with them, disembodied but real enough. _Cersei. Sweet sister._

Brienne was silent a moment. “Was it better, with her?”

“No.”

“Then why –”

“Another time,” Jaime said quickly. “I will answer any questions you have, but not here. Not now. Please.”

“Alright.” Brienne raised her head and kissed his cheek. “Shall I blow out the candles?”

Jaime cupped her cheek, and grinned at her. “Not just yet, I think.”


	14. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slightly NSFW. An important conversation is had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I've been working out whether to continue this fic into the War for the Dawn, or to write that as a second fic, so I've been fiddling and changing more than usual. (At the moment, I'm leaning towards finishing this fic and doing a mostly-book War for the Dawn.)  
> Also, I’m leaning towards book Tommen’s age rather than show Tommen.

 

 

They both slept late the next morning, and Jaime had his wife for the third time before he reluctantly let her leave the bed and request food from the servants.

He was engaged in trying to wrangle her back into it, her robe half-off, when her maidservant brought the platter in. Brienne turned the approximate colour of a beet and dived to the floor, frantically trying to cover herself. Jaime only chuckled, and the girl – who Jaime would bet was far more worldly in the ways of men and women than Brienne, despite being younger – didn’t even blink as she set the food out and took her leave.

Jaime leaned over the edge of the bed. Brienne had managed to get her robe fastened, but she was still blushing fiercely. “Brienne, that girl attends you daily. She’s surely seen your teats before today.”

“Yes, but not – not like _that_!”

“It embarrasses you that your husband finds you irresistible?” Jaime took her chin and turned her face up. “Brienne. Are you ashamed of me?”

Blue eyes met his, wide and shocked. “No!”

“Then don’t be ashamed of yourself.” He released her. “And come and eat, because _I_ am certainly not going to drink the goat’s milk.”

He did persuade her back to bed after they’d broken their fast, and afterwards they both dozed a while, so it was past midday before they emerged from Brienne’s bedchamber.  Brienne turned scarlet every time someone looked at her, while Jaime offered up a smug smile. _If the Dragon Queen_ does _have eyes and ears in Evenfall Hall, she’ll soon know that there can be no doubt this is a true marriage now._ For a heartbeat, he saw _white hair and violet eyes, green flames …_ but gone again as he blinked, before he even missed a step.

“What shall we do today?” Jaime asked as they reached the Great Hall, because he’d been far too busy trying to make Brienne blush over their morning meal to discuss it, and Brienne had been far too busy being scandalised and embarrassed to raise the topic either.

“There’s a place I’d like to show you,” Brienne said quietly. “Not far.”

Jaime took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Shall I brave the kitchen and gather us supplies?”

“We only just –” Brienne stopped. “I am a little hungry, again.”

Jaime leaned close and whispered, “As am I.” He traced the rim of her ear with his lips, and grinned when Brienne turned pink.

“I’ll have horses saddled,” she said, a little breathless.

“I’ll meet you in the yard.”

The kitchen staff were more than happy to provision Lady Brienne’s husband with all he might want. They were generous with bread, and cheese, and pickled vegetables, and fruit – and with sidelong glances and winks and slyly raised eyebrows as well. _They love her. How could they not?_ He wondered if Brienne even knew it. _Perhaps they wondered, when she was younger, that she was as she was and not as they expected her to be … but there are songs sung about her now._ He’d heard a few of them himself, not at court, of course, but at inns along the road. Brienne of Tarth defending Ned Stark’s daughter from the Bolton bastard, that was one. Brienne of Tarth striking down ten men in defence of a maiden was another. _Of course they love her, the Evenstar’s heir, celebrated as the bravest woman in Westeros._

He found Brienne in the stable-yard, their horses already tacked and ready. Jaime stowed the food in his saddlebags, and the jars of water in hers. “They’ve provisioned us for a year,” he said. “I think they expect me to spend the day – or the next few days – fucking you in some secluded location.”

Brienne blushed. “Jaime, stop.”

He put a foot in the stirrup and swung up easily. “Stop planning to fuck you? Or stop talking about it?”

“Jaime!” Brienne turned away and mounted her own horse. She winced a little as she settled into the saddle. _Sore._ Well, they had been … quite vigorous. Jaime turned Brightblaze’s head toward the gates, and resigned himself to finding his pleasure outside her body for the next few days.

It _wasn’t_ far, as Brienne had promised – closer than the horse-fold, but far more hidden. They turned aside from the well-trod trail that led to the high pastures, and followed a faint and twisting path through trees, over a narrow pass, and then down again, winding through more forests.

When the trees cleared, they revealed a long and narrow lake, sheltered on all sides by hills.

“In the summer, it’s pleasant to swim,” Brienne said. She dismounted, and began to take her horse’s bridle off. “Not so in other seasons.”

Jaime dismounted as well. “Should we hobble them?”

Brienne shook her head. “There are no wolves or mountain lions on Tarth, and they won’t wander into the trees, with the grass to tempt them.”

Jaime freed Brightblaze to graze without the hindrance of bridle or bit, and took the food from his saddlebags as Brienne took the jugs from hers. They sat on the grass near the water’s edge.

Jaime tapped one of the jugs. “I hope at least one of these contains something other than goat’s milk,” he said, although he knew for a fact one held water and the other ale.

Brienne wrapped her arms around her legs, chin resting on her knees. “This was Galladon’s place. He brought me here but once. Perhaps a month before he died. I remembered the lake, but not the way. It took me years to find it again.”

Jaime put his hand on her back, tracing the line of her spine. “I am sorry, Brienne. I can’t imagine losing Tyrion.”

She turned her head to look at him. “And Cersei?”

His hand stilled. “I don’t know.”

“You promised me truth,” Brienne said.

“That is truth. I don’t know.” Jaime moved his hand to her shoulder. “But it’s truth that I’m glad there’s the width of the Seven Kingdoms between us. I think I’d be sorry to hear she had died. I think I’d be glad if she could find some way to be happy, some harmless way. But there are times I think the opposite.” He shrugged. “She’s my sister. Between her and Tyrion, I’d chose Tyrion. Between her and you, I’d choose you. Between Cersei and my father? Probably Cersei.”

“How did it start?” Brienne asked quietly. “You and her?”

“I don’t even remember, we were so young. Our mother separated us, but then she died, birthing Tyrion … and my father was never really interested.”

“You must have known it was wrong,” Brienne protested.

Jaime chuckled. “Oh, by the time I knew it was wrong, we were well along the road to the Seven Hells. And there were the Targaryens, weren’t there? We were ruled by a king who was wed to his sister.  How wrong could it be?”

Brienne’s next question was very quiet, directed at her knees. “Do you love her?”

“A little? More than a stranger, less than my brother? I don’t know.”

Even quieter still. “But you’d choose me?”

His fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Brienne. The only reason I’m glad the Dragon Queen has come to Westeros is that, inexplicably, she has decided that I should be here with you.”

She turned her head to look at him, rubbing her cheek against her knee. “Cersei is so much prettier than me.”

“Also so much crueller than you, and less honourable, and more selfish, and more given to hitting me in the face,” Jaime said. “And I prefer looking on you, Brienne, and that is truth.”

“How can you?” she cried, turned her face to her knees again.

He moved closer to her, arm around her shoulders. “Brienne. Did last night – and this morning – not give you sufficient proof? There are many women praised for their looks in the Seven Kingdoms. I prefer you. If we were parted, I would look for your blue eyes in every crowd. _Your_ eyes, Brienne, not Cersei’s.” She leaned against him a little, and Jaime squeezed her shoulder. “Do you care for me, Brienne?”

“Of course,” she mumbled. “How can you ask?”

“And if I should be injured in some battle, my face slashed open, turned ugly, would you care for me less?”

Brienne raised her head and stared at him. “Of course not! How can you think so?”

“You think so of me,” Jaime said. “You think I care more for a fine mask than for the woman who wears it. Do you think so little of me, after all?”

She was still a moment, and then leaned forward and kissed him. “No,” she whispered against his lips. “No, I don’t think so little of you, Jaime. No.” She kissed him again, and then shifted to lean against his chest, her head on his shoulder. “You said you thought she’d have me harmed, if she knew … that you … that you were not indifferent to me. Is that the truth?”

Jaime put his arm around her shoulders. “It is.”

“Is that why you stayed? I mean, not South, but at court.”

“No. Oh, perhaps in part, but no.” Jaime felt Brienne stiffen a little, but she didn’t pull away. “Tommen is my son. Lord Tywin is my father. Cersei is my sister. Should I leave Tommen to my kind father’s care and my sweet sister’s influence? Should I leave my lord father with no son to aid him, just a grandson who wears a crown too large for him and a sister lost in her cups before midmorning? Should I leave my sister with no ally against my father’s plan to marry her to another useful lord who’d rape her until he had his heir, save her own young and helpless son?”

“That is how things stand now,” Brienne pointed out.

“But Tyrion loves Tommen, and he has the ear of the Dragon Queen,” Jaime said. “My father and sister are attainted traitors. He can make no match for her. And Margaery Tyrell, well, Tommen loves her, and she is clever enough not to be cruel to him. I put my faith in Tyrion and Margaery.”

“Do you miss him, your son?”

“Yes,” Jaime admitted. “He’s a sweet boy. He loves kittens and his greatest ambition for kingship was to outlaw beets.” He ran his hand down her arm and back to her shoulder. “Given some of the kings we’ve had, positively a wise and beneficent ruler. Except for beet farmers, of course, but I’m sure they could plant something else. Tommen does like carrots.”

Brienne laughed. “Would you like him to visit? Him and Margaery?”

“The queen would never –”

“I think she would,” Brienne said. “If I asked her, and Tyrion asked her –”

_If Brienne asked her._ “Not in person.” Jaime’s own voice sounded like a stranger’s, far away.

“I think –”

“Not in person!” _Brienne, facing dragons_.

_Brienne, burning, her fair freckled skin charring, her blue eyes bewildered with pain, Brienne, screaming –_

“Jaime. Jaime. Come back to me. Come back to me, now, Jaime.”

She was kneeling in front of him, her hands on his cheeks, frowning. “Brienne.” His voice was no more than a croak. His heart was racing as if he’d just come through a battle and he shivered as the breeze off the lake ghosted over clothes soaked with muck sweat.

“I’m here. I’m here, Jaime, and so are you.”

Jaime managed to nod, and Brienne sat back and pulled him with her, drawing him into her lap and wrapping her arms around him. “I’m sorry, I –”

“Hush,” she soothed. “Hush. I understand. I have foul dreams, too, at times. I’ve seen them waking, at times.”

Jaime pressed his face to her shoulder and shivered. “But you’re not so weak as I am, too –”

“This is not weakness, Jaime,” Brienne said firmly. “You’re a fool to think so. Any more than a broken arm is, or any other injury or any wound. My father explained it to me, when I asked about Ser Burston. He said it was many a year until he could walk into the great hall without remembering the day they brought him news of my brother’s death, as if he were there all over again. You are hurt, that’s all.”

Her arms were warm and strong and gentle, and she ran her fingers through his hair until his shaking stopped, and longer. Jaime leaned against her, trusting her strength to hold him up, feeling the past ebb away from him with each pass of her hand. He could have slept, then; he could have wept.

Perhaps Brienne understood, because she unfolded her legs and turned and laid him down with her on the grass. “Be easy, Jaime. Be easy.” She rolled them so he lay across her, his face against her neck. She was warm beneath him, her arms tight around him, her fingers gentle in his hair.  He sighed, and let her lull him into a half-sleep, drifting between dreaming and waking, cradled and safe in her arms.

 


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW also canon-typical violence. The weeks that follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m mixing book and show canon here, and going with show canon for the absence of Lady Stoneheart. The next few chapters are going to be a little rambly with a lot of conversation as I wrap this up and try to bring things to the brink of the War for the Dawn.

Jaime had promised Brienne he would take her as a husband took her wife on the hillsides, in the stables, in the armoury, in the baths, and in the months that followed he made good on every promise.  He loved her high up in the mountains, both their cloaks beneath them to cushion against the hard earth. He loved her in the straw of an unused horse-stall, the stalks scratching his back as Brienne held him down and rode him ruthlessly. When he finally got the best of her in the training yard, he dragged her into the armoury and pushed her up against the wall, demanding his reward, pressing his knee between hers and rocking against her until she was gasping and clinging to his shoulders. And the baths … he had her in the baths as often as in their bed, usually _before_ he had her in their bed, either with Brienne braced against the edge of the bath as Jaime drove into her or Brienne riding him, legs wrapped tight around his waist, her fingers fisted in his hair as she panted against his lips.

He had never thought of marriage, except as something unwelcome, until Daenerys Targaryen had determined it for him, but Jaime discovered that marriage to Brienne of Tarth was constantly unfolding delight.

He had wanted to please her, and he did – more and more, as he learned her body and discovered what she liked the most. He learnt how to bring her most quickly to sobbing eagerness and he learnt how to keep her lingering in sighing languor.

What Jaime had not expected was that Brienne would learn his body as quickly and eagerly as he learned hers. With Cersei – and it was strange, after so long feeling that he was unfaithful to consider another woman’s body, to now feel the same way when he remembered his twin – with Cersei, he had learnt the fastest way to please her so he could go on to his own pleasure, and she had been entirely enthusiastic about that agenda.

Brienne, though … Brienne was entirely different. She was shy and hesitant the first time she used her mouth to pleasure him, but before long she was teasing and torturing him with her mouth and hands. _Tell me what you want_ , she whispered, holding herself apart from him until Jaime was begging _You, please, I need, Brienne …_ She was strong enough to insist on her own priorities, and sometimes those priorities were her own pleasure and sometimes they were slowly tormenting him to a climax so deliciously delayed it robbed him of sight and sound and thought. It became a contest between them, a sparring match. Which of them would yield first, and beg the other? Which of them would be left sighing and limp beneath the other?

Night by night it varied, and whichever one of them won, they were both victors. 

And afterwards, regardless of which of them had won that night, Brienne would wrap her arms around him, press Jaime’s face against her neck and hold him safely through the night. No fire could touch him so long as she was there.

If Brienne wrote to Queen Daenerys about Tommen, she didn’t mention it.  Nor did she say anything further about going to King’s Landing. Jaime was equally content not to raise the subject. He missed Tommen, of course he did, but to see the boy at the price of drawing Daenerys Targaryen’s attention to him, to Jaime, to Brienne? _No._

Chance mentions of their new queen still ambushed him with glimpses of _white hair, mad eyes_ … _Burn them all_ , _and the_ _smell of wildfire and burning flesh_. Not as much, though, as days turned to weeks, and Brienne was always there to touch his hand and draw him back to her. She never asked, but from time to time Jaime found himself telling her, more than the little she already knew. Hearing Queen Rhaella screaming, _you’re hurting me, you’re hurting me!_ How he would go away from the screams and the smell as men burned but the stench would cling to his clothes and his hair and his armour for days, no matter how often he bathed and how many times he set his squires to cleaning his gear.

That he had been sitting on the Iron Throne, unable to form a single whole thought, waiting to see who’d come and claim it, while Gregor Clegane raped Elia Martell with the brains of her infant son still on his hands.   

“Stark came,” Jaime told Brienne’s shoulder one night as they lay in bed, his lips against her skin. He shivered. “He – Brienne.”  

Her arms tightened around him. “I’m here. So are you.”

“I know it isn’t true, can’t be true, but he rode the length of the Great Hall without a sound. Not even his mount’s hooves made a noise on the stone floor. He brought the silence with him, like a wave. I sat on the Iron Throne with my bare and bloody sword across my knees and he rode up and stopped. And I stood, and stepped aside for him, in all that silence. An honourable man, Eddard Stark. Far more than my father, and far wiser than Robert fucking Baratheon. And he looked at me with those cold grey eyes, and named me Kingslayer.”

Brienne ran her hand along his spine. “He was young. You were younger. The truth is known, now.”

“It doesn’t matter, now. The Mad King’s daughter sits on the throne.”

“She isn’t her father any more than you are,” Brienne said. “Any more than Joffrey was you, or Tommen is your sister.”

“You don’t know that,” Jaime said. “They say Aerys wasn’t what he became, at first.”

Brienne pressed a kiss to his hair. “She changed the oath of the Kingsguard. Queensguard. They’re sworn to guard her back and keep her counsel. To protect those of royal blood, and those the Queen wishes protected. To obey the Queen, her Hand, and her councillors in that order. And to put the realm before the queen, should it be necessary.”

Jaime snorted. “She has dragons, Brienne.”

“And seven great warriors who have sworn a holy oath to, as she put it, follow Ser Jaime Lannister’s example if it becomes necessary.”

Jaime raised his head. “She said that?”

Brienne nodded. “She did. I was there, when she swore them, on Dragonstone, before she left for King’s Landing. She’s as afraid of the Mad King’s legacy as you are, Jaime. She’s … I don’t know, I don’t know her well enough to say, but … she is ruthless, yes. She can be hard. But her first instinct is kindness, to those who aren’t her enemies. Or who aren’t cruel, themselves.”

“And when half the realm is are her enemies, as they were with her father?” Jaime lowered his head again, needing the comfort of her skin against his lips. “What then?”

“She has sent those who won’t kneel to the Wall, to take the Black,” Brienne said. “She has executed men, yes, those who wouldn’t take that mercy. Who would do differently?”

“Executed by fire.”

“Do you think she should swing the sword herself? That would be crueller. She’s just a girl, she’d take off their heads inch by inch.”

“You like her,” Jaime said, realising it. “You are fond of her.”

Brienne was silent a moment. “I am. She has courage. She has strength. She survived things that many men would not.”

“Many _men_?” Jaime asked.

“Most women endure some of them,” Brienne said. “To be sold in marriage, as so much chattel, for family advantage. To lose a child. To lose a husband. She rose from that and made the world over in a shape that she thought was better. She has made herself strong and she uses that strength against those who harm children, and the helpless. She strives for _justice_ , Jaime.”

“Does she even understand what that is?”

“She knows it isn’t vengeance, or she would have had you killed the moment you set foot on the beach,” Brienne said. “She is striving to do what is right. Will she always be correct? Will I be? Will you?”

“She has her father’s eyes,” Jaime whispered.

“Or her mother’s,” Brienne said. “She’s the daughter of Aerys, but she’s also the grand-daughter of Aegon. The daughter of Rhaella.” Her fingers carded through his hair. “We can’t know what _will_ happen, can we? Only what _is_ happening, and what is happening is that there is peace, and soldiers returned to their villages and farms, and lords and their bannermen freed to turn their attention back to protecting their people from outlaws and bandits. Grain wagons travel north, against the winter. Lord Snow believes there is a great threat coming from beyond the Wall, and Queen Daenerys has sent half her Unsullied and half her Dothraki to bolster the garrisons there.”  

Jaime raised his head again, frowning. “ _Lord_ Snow? I thought he was styling himself the King in the North?”

“He and the queen have reached an agreement. He’s Lord Snow, Warden of the North, south of the Neck. He’s King Jon, the King in the North, north of it. Our Queen is the Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector the Realm, south of the Neck. North of it, she styles herself Queen of the Andals the First Men, and Protector of the Realm.”

“Why would she make such a compromise?” Jaime asked.  

Brienne was silent a moment. “Because Lord Snow is right. The dead walk, Jaime. The Others are real. I saw risen corpses fight, at the Wall, when I took Lady Sansa to find safety with her brother.” She bit her lip. “There is another war coming. Not a war between would-be kings, but a great war between the living and the dead. When it comes, it won’t matter who calls themselves by what title. When it’s over …” She shrugged a little. “Well, they may come into conflict then.”

Jaime raised himself on one elbow. “Why haven’t you mentioned this before now?”

Brienne shivered a little. “Because I don’t like to think about it. Because …” Her gaze slid away from his. “Because I have been pretending that it won’t happen. That I will be able to stay here.”

“Stay here – Brienne, you’re not thinking of going North.”

“I have to. I swore to safeguard Sansa and Arya Stark.”

“Then bring them to Tarth!” Jaime snapped. “They’ll be safer here than in the middle of some fucking war with monsters from myth!”  

“Lord Snow says that if the dead breach the Wall, and we don’t stop them north of the Neck, there will be _nowhere_ safe,” Brienne said. “And I believe him, Jaime. I’ve spoken to men who fought the army of the dead at Hardhome. They saw the Others for themselves.”

Jaime shook his head. “I won’t let you –”

Brienne sat up and glared down at him. “ _Let_ me?”

“Poor choice of words,” Jaime said quickly. “I mean, I won’t allow _myself_ to sit here safe while you fight.”  He reached up and took her arm. “Come here, Brienne.”

She let him draw her back down to lean against his shoulder.  “It might be a while yet,” she said. “Or never. With the extra men at the Wall, Lord Snow hopes to stop the dead there.”

“Are you taking tansy tea?” Jaime asked. “Because … Brienne, if you get with child –”

“I’ll have more reason to fight,” Brienne said.

“And less ability, once your centre of gravity changes and you can’t fit into your armour.” It had been weeks and more since they’d truly become man and wife, and, now Jaime thought about it, Brienne hadn’t bled. “Brienne, you might already have a babe.”

Brienne turned her head, and spoke to his shoulder. “It’s too early to be certain.”

Jaime’s breath stopped for several heartbeats. “But it’s possible.”

“My moonblood is late,” Brienne said softly. “Are you angry?”

“Angry? Gods, no,” Jaime said. “Frightened? Seven Hells, yes. You’ve just told me you plan to fight in this _great war_ against the _Others_ , the fucking cold gods themselves, which are apparently _real_ , and you may be carrying our child – Brienne. This is madness.”

“I swore an oath,” she said stubbornly.

“So did I. You fulfilled it once, on my behalf. Let me fulfil it now, on yours.”

Brienne was quiet for a moment – her thinking silence, Jaime had come to know. “On several conditions.”

“Name them,” he said instantly.

“First, if I don’t have a child, or if the war comes after it’s born, I go too. Or I go alone, and you stay to care for our child, and for Tarth.” Jaime drew breath, and Brienne raised her head and looked him in the eye. “We both know that I’m better than you, at least, for now. If it’s to be one of us, I stand a better chance of coming home.”

It was galling to admit it, but Jaime nodded. “Agreed.”

“You allow me to ask the queen to bring Tommen and Margery here. He’s your son, Jaime, and Tarth is a safer place for him. If we lose, and the Others get past the Neck, there will still be time to take ship to Braavos, or Pentos, or somewhere else. They may be safe there.”

Jaime swallowed hard. _White, wild hair … the Mad King laughing_ … “You mean to go to King’s Landing?”

“I mean to send a raven,” Brienne said. “To your brother. But I will go and plead in person, if needs be. I don’t fear her, Jaime, and you wouldn’t, if not for … for what happened.” She laid her hand against his cheek. “Jaime. Let me bring your son to safety.”

“He’s Cersei’s son as well,” Jaime said softly.

“I leave _her_ safety to your father and your brother,” Brienne said. “But Tommen? He’s a child. He’s _your_ child.”

“Not yours,” Jaime pointed out.

“You are mine, and I am yours. And he is yours, so he is mine.”

Brienne’s face blurred, and Jaime had to blink hard to clear his vision. “A raven. I won’t agree to you going to King’s Landing.”

“A raven,” Brienne agreed.

“And have you a third condition?”     

“No.” She laid her head against his shoulder again.

“Then I have one,” Jaime said. He gathered her closer to him. “If you go North, I go with you. You are talking of a war, Brienne, not a fight. You _are_ better than me, one-on-one, but I know sieges, and battles, and how to array forces, and how to mount a defence. If you are right, and the white shadows march on the realms of men, I can do much and more to help.”

“And Tommen?” Brienne said. “Who will protect him, or our child, if there is one?”

Jaime pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “And this is why you must let me go North. You think in twos and fives and tens. If this war is real –”

“It is.”

“Then every man, woman and child on Tarth must be ready to leave. You have the boats. You have the sailors, the fisherfolk. Supplies should be laid in, and drills should be run. If the Others make it south of the Neck, this island must be empty within a day, and all its people be afloat and headed to the Free Cities. They will protect Tommen, and any child of ours, and Margaery.”

“Within a day?” Brienne shook her head. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. With practice.” Jaime ran his hand along her back. “I’ll take charge of the practice. You’ll be my second in command, and you’ll learn, which will help when we go North.”

“And what will we tell people? When they ask why?”

“Either the truth, or some plausible lie,” Jaime said. “The Iron Fleet, perhaps? The Golden Company?”

“They’ll never believe the truth,” Brienne said.

“From you, they will.” Jaime cupped the back of her neck. “I think you misunderstand how they see you, Brienne. You remember being a girl, not knowing how to meet their expectations. But you have been years and more away, and in that time, you’ve become quite famous, Brienne.”  

Brienne snorted. “I’m –”

“The Maid of Tarth rode out one day,” Jaime sang softly. “Her sword bright in her hand. Upon the road, some outlaws found, and bravely bid them stand.”

“Stop,” Brienne said. “You’re making that up.”

“I am not,” Jaime said. “I’ve heard it a dozen times at inns and taverns.” He cleared his throat. “A sweet girl stood, afraid but brave, until the Maid’s sword swung free. Now leave her there, the maiden fair – leave her and try rape me. The outlaws laughed, and they all charged, but the Maid’s sword flashed fast and true. She slew them all, the Hound withall, and made them their evil rue.”

“That is such a terrible rhyme,” Brienne said. Her face was pressed against his shoulder, but Jaime could tell from the heat of her cheek against his skin that she was blushing. “It can’t be true.” 

“But it is. Do you want to hear the others?”

“Gods old and new, no!”

Jaime ignored her. “The Lady of Winterfell fled, she fled. Through winter fled alone. Earth was like to iron, water stood like stone. For all her life she fled, for her family and her name. In the depths of winter, when no-one knew her name.”

“She had Theon Greyjoy with her –”

“As she fled, she prayed for help, but answer came there none. Until the Maid of Tarth rode up, an army all in one.”

“That’s absurd,” Brienne protested.

“She struck the Boltons down at once, her sword as keen as light, and took her charge of Winterfell, to safety in the night.”

Brienne buried her face against his shoulder. “You’re making that up.”

“I’m not,” Jaime said. “Your deeds are sung from one end of the country to the other. I stayed in an inn in the Riverlands where every man sang along to the ballad of the Maid of Tarth and her rescue of the sweet girl threatened by the Hound.”

“That wasn’t how it was,” Brienne protested.

“Oh? Did you not step forward to protect a girl from rape?”

“But it wasn’t –”

“Seven men,” Jaime said. “You told me. Seven, Brienne. I would have taken on seven, when I had my right hand, but not been sure to win. Depending on how many of them knew how to fight, really knew.”

“You would have,” Brienne said. “If you’d been there … you would have. Sword-hand or no.”

Jaime pressed his lips against her hair again. “I’d like to think.”

She chuckled. “You jumped unarmed and one-handed into a bearpit, Jaime. You would have stood forth against those men.”

“And they would have sung songs of my heroic death,” Jaime said. “Instead of your heroic victory.”

“They’d have sung songs of _my_ heroic death if it hadn’t been for Gendry, and Ser Hyle, and the Brotherhood.”

Jaime shivered, and drew her closer. “Then thank the gods for Gendry and Ser Hyle and the Brotherhood. What happened then?”

“The Brotherhood treated my wounds. They were suspicious that I was a Lannister – the sword, more than anything. But Ser Beric believed me when I told him why I had it, and what I was about. They let me go, and Pod and I went north.”

“And Ser Hyle?”

“He joined the Brotherhood. Seeing a man brought back from the dead was … well, perhaps if I hadn’t sworn an oath to Lady Catelyn I would have joined, as well.”

Jaime raised his head a little to stare at her. “Brought back from the dead?”

Brienne nodded. “You know the stories of Ser Beric Dondarrion being slain but then riding again?”

“Aye, any man with a flaming sword can claim –”

“ _No_ , Jaime,” Brienne said. “A Red Priest rides with the Brotherhood and he can raise the dead. He raises Ser Beric each time he falls.” She laid her hand on his chest. “Many things we thought were myth are true. Dragons, the cold gods … I hear that glass candles burn in Oldtown.”

He searched her face, and found nothing there but truth. “If we go north, it is together,” he said at last. “If the world we know is ending, we face what comes _together_.”

Brienne leaned closer and pressed her lips to his. “Together,” she agreed.


	16. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops a bit more of people talking to each other! Sorry.

  
Jaime knew that Brienne had written to King’s Landing – she’d shown him the raven-scroll before she sent it – but still, he had managed to put the thought aside, to lose himself in days of training and drills and plans to evacuate Tarth if needed, in nights in Brienne’s arms.

Until a dragon swooped over Evenfall Hall.

They were in the training yard, just finished with the squires, when the shadow swept over them and Jaime looked up to see wide black wings, scaly tail –

“Jaime, Jaime,” Brienne said, and he realised she was beneath him, in the corner of the yard. His body covered hers, his hand pressing her face against his shoulder. “Jaime. It’s just the queen.”

_Just the queen._ It took him long moments to loosen his grip on her, and Brienne was still and quiet until he could let her go. “Why is she – have you offended her?”

“No.” Brienne slid out from under him and put her arms around his shoulders. “Your brother told me to expect guests. I thought he meant by boat.”

Jaime had to swallow twice to work enough spit into his mouth to speak. “Guests?”

“Did you not see there were others on the dragon?”

Jaime hadn’t seen there was even one rider on the dragon, only the great black shape of it and _fire, blazing, green fire …_ He shook his head.

“Go inside,” Brienne said gently. “I’ll greet them.”

“No.” His voice sounded almost normal – almost. “I’ll not have you facing dragons without me. What comes, we face together.”

Jaime’s resolution almost faltered, though, when it came to descending the steps from the Great Hall to the courtyard where the dragon had taken roost. Only Brienne’s hand warm in his made it possible for him to make it down the stairs and stand, more or less steady, by her side. Dragging his gaze from the great maw of the beast, he saw that Brienne had been right: the Dragon Queen was astride her creature, but there were three others as well. _Tyrion. Margaery._

_And …_

His son slid down the dragon’s side, stepped off one mighty leg, and hurried forward. “Uncle Jaime! I rode a dragon!”

“You did,” Jaime said, and tried his best not to faint as sweat dried cold on his face.

“Lord Tommen,” Brienne said. She bowed, without letting go of Jaime’s hand. “I’m Brienne of Tarth. You are welcome to Evenfall Hall.”

“I thank you for your welcome,” Tommen said, and despite his youth, the formal words sounded right and true in his boy’s voice. “And you and yours will always find welcome at my hearth, Lady Brienne.”

Behind him, Margaery slid down from the dragon’s back with the grace of a girl well-used to riding, and turned to offer a hand to Tyrion.

After them, the Dragon Queen.  She turned and caressed the great beast’s scaly nose, and with a flap of its mighty wings the dragon took off, soaring into the sky.

Tyrion and Margaery came forward, the girl accommodating her pace to Tyrion’s. Margaery dipped a curtsey as she reached them, and Tyrion smiled. “Dear brother. And sister, now.”

Brienne bowed again. “Lord Tyrion. Lady Margaery. You are both welcome.”

And behind his brother and his … _good-daughter? Good-niece? Both?_ Behind Margaery came Daenerys Targaryen, her hair silver, her eyes violet, her face … her face, her father’s. Jaime realised that he _was_ going to swoon, in front of his son and his son’s wife, his brother and his brother’s queen. His face was cold and prickling with sweat, his hand was numb …

Queen Daenerys reached up to her shoulders and flipped the loose wrap she wore up and over her hair. It shaded her face and cast her eyes into a new, darker shade, and suddenly she was just another young woman with a beautiful face and a proud bearing.

Brienne knelt, and Jaime knelt beside her. “Your grace,” Brienne said. “Evenfall Hall, and Tarth, are yours.”

“Tarth is beautiful,” Queen Daenerys said. “And I am most grateful for your welcome, Lady Brienne, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime raised his head to see her looking down at him. In the shadow beneath her shawl, he thought he could see the faintest lift to her eyebrow. “Your grace,” he said, and was surprised how steady his voice was. _Really, she looks nothing like her father, apart from her colouring._

“Lady Brienne,” Queen Daenerys said. “I have long looked forward to meeting your father. Will you take me to him, while your husband and his family reacquaint themselves?”

“I would be delighted,” Brienne said, and offered her arm as if she were a knight.

Daenerys took it, and allowed herself to be escorted up the stairs.

Jaime got to his feet, knees still shaky. “Are you well?” he asked Tommen, glancing at Tyrion to include him in the question.

“I rode a dragon!” Tommen said again.

“You did,” Jaime agreed again, and then, for all he was only the boy’s uncle as far as the law was concerned, and for all Tommen was a boy growing into a man, he dropped to his knees and gathered the boy into his arms and held him close. “You did. Was it fine?”

A boy growing into a man, but a boy, still. Tommen’s arms closed tight around his neck. “It was. I’ve missed you, uncle Jaime.”

“And I you, Tommen. And I you. But I couldn’t –”

“I know,” the boy said, generous as always. “It’s been fine. Margaery and I –”

“Things are different at Casterly Rock,” Margaery Tyrell said easily. “Tywin Lannister knows he is lucky to be alive, let alone permitted to advise his grandson. Cersei keeps to her rooms.”

“But I’m glad to visit,” Tommen said as Jaime released him.

Tyrion came forward and Jaime embraced him in turn. “Little brother.”

“Favourite Lannister,” Tyrion said, holding hard to him for a long moment. “How does life on Tarth suit you?”

“It suits me well.” Jaime let Tyrion go and stood up. “But perhaps not for as long as I’d like it to –”

“Later,” Tyrion said quickly, glancing at Tommen. “We have much to discuss, it’s true, but that’s a conversation that needs a great deal of wine.”

Jaime found a servant who knew where their guests were to be lodged, and turned Tommen and Margaery over to her care. He braced himself as he led Tyrion into the Great Hall to greet the Evenstar, but Daenerys had her shawl still tossed over her hair and there was no green fire at all.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and Tyrion glanced up at him. “So it helps?”

“Your idea? Yes, it helps. How did you guess?”

Tyrion touched his hand. “Hardly a guess. I saw your face when you saw her for the first time, and I’ve seen your face when you talk about her father.”

“I never talked about the Mad King with you,” Jaime said.

“Dear brother, you spoke of nothing else for a decade – just never with words.”

They got through the formalities with the Evenstar, and then Queen Daenerys surprised Jaime by turning to him. “Ser Jaime. Lady Brienne tells me there is a fine view from the eastern walls. Would you show it to me?”

There was really nothing to be said to requests from kings and queens but _yes, your grace_ , and so Jaime said it, and offered his arm.

He expected to feel her touch searing his arm to the bone, but it was just a hand: a light, girlish hand, the touch of a woman who knew what the expected courtesies were but had no need of anyone’s assistance, _thank you kindly all the same_. As he led her through the corridors, Jaime waited for the queen to speak, and when she did not he began to tell her about Tarth, simply to fill the silence: the mountains, and the vales, the shadowed lakes, the waterfalls that sent spray flying to strike rainbows from the sunlight. By the time they reached the _fine view_ over the green hills to the sea beyond, Jaime had told Queen Daenerys about the fine colt from Brightblaze and Brienne’s sweet mare, about the songs the fisherfolk sang to keep the rhythm of their labour beneath the high keen cry of the gulls, about the shaggy, sure-footed goats of the crags. He had told her about goat’s milk, and the difficulty of acquiring a taste for it, about the evenings in the Great Hall when every man and woman present had a spindle or a skein in hand, about the softness of wool woven from goat’s fleece.

It was with effort he stopped his nervous prattling. “You see,” he said. “It is a fine view.”

The queen released his arm, and stepped forward to rest her hands on the balustrade. “It is. Tarth is beautiful. From above, it’s an emerald in a bed of sapphires.” She turned to look up at him. “Your lady wife has sent word that you and she are preparing to abandon the island, and take all her people to Essos.”

“Your grace –”

She stilled his tongue with a gesture of her hand. “I don’t take it amiss, Ser Jaime. If all the Seven Kingdoms were mounted on islands, I would be commanding all my lords to do exactly that. But they are not. Your preparation, though, tells me you know what we face – know and believe, which is rarer still.”

“I don’t know what I believe,” Jaime said honestly. “Brienne believes, though, and that’s enough for me.”

Queen Daenerys smiled, and it made her younger than her years, and her years were not so very many. “I’m pleased to hear it.” She turned to look out towards the sea again, and a gust of wind caught her shawl and tugged it from her silver hair. The breeze frayed the white locks until they drifted around her the way –

_Burn them all. Green fire and a man roasting in his armour and the screams, the screams …_

Jaime blinked, and found himself on his knees, sweat cold on his face. The queen was some distance from him, once more wrapped in her shawl. “Your grace,” he said, voice like a rusty hinge.

“What did my father do to you?” she asked quietly.

“Nothing.” Jaime pushed himself to his feet. “To me? Nothing.”

“I have pardoned you for killing him.”

“Pardoned, or forgiven?” Jaime shot back, and then wished he’d bitten his tongue off first as the queen arched an eyebrow.

 “Do you need forgiveness?”

“Yes,” Jaime said, the old, wild recklessness on him, the way it had taken him before with a sword in his hand. “Yes, I need forgiveness – for not killing him sooner.”

“For the sake of the Realm?”

“For the sake of your mother!” His voice cracked on the shout, and he pressed his lips together and lowered his head. “Forgive me, your grace, I –”

“I know what cruel men with power do to the women who can’t fight them,” Daenerys said.  “I know my father was a cruel man. Perhaps his cruelty came only from his madness. Perhaps not.”

Jaime leaned against the balustrade and fixed his gaze on his hand. “I was sworn to protect her, as my queen. But not from him. I was sworn to protect all women, and I was sworn to serve the king. So many oaths.”

The queen’s footsteps made barely any sound on the stone walk as she came closer to him, so small and slight was she. “Ser Jaime Lannister, once known as the Kingslayer.  I have pardoned you, but I cannot forgive you. Those whose forgiveness you might seek are dead, and it is not for me to speak for them.” She put her small white hand beside his. “We must all face our own dead.”

“From what I hear, we shall soon all face each others’ dead, as well,” Jaime said.

“Yes. I have not seen these cold gods for myself, but I have been to the Wall, and I have seen enough there to make me believe Lord Snow. Do you fight with us, Ser Jaime?”

“Where Brienne goes, I go,” Jaime said.  “Where she fights, I draw my sword.”

Daenerys turned a little, looking up at him. “And if not for her? Would you fight with us?”

“If not for her, your grace, I wouldn’t be alive to fight at all.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Isn’t it?” Jaime countered. “Do you want my oath, your grace? It’s not worth much – as you well know.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you think you are charming, Ser Jaime? Because I must tell you, I have been charmed by better men.”

“Is your sweet husband Gendry Baratheon among them?” _Gods old and new_. Why was he fencing with her, this child with dragons at her command?

“He is not charming, but he is a better man than you,” the queen said.

“All men are better men than me,” Jaime parried.  

“Far be it for me to disagree.” _And the counter-riposte._ Jaime couldn’t keep from smiling. “I amuse you, Ser Jaime?”

“You _impress_ me, your grace.”

“You are easy to impress,” Daenerys shot back.

“Not so much,” Jaime said, and the swords kissed and sprang apart again. His blood sang, as if they were truly duelling. “Although your three dragons do give you an advantage.”

“And without them?”

“Without them, would you be the Mother of Dragons?” Jaime countered. “If I had two hands …”

“You _have_ two hands,” Daenerys said. “It is only that one of them is gold.”

“Steel,” Jaime said. “Gilded steel.”

“And is it useful to you?”

“I can hold a wine cup and break a man’s teeth with it, so yes,” Jaime said.

“Drinking and fighting,” Daenerys said. “The _most_ important things.”

“Many men say so.”

“Men like you?”

“There are no men like me. Only me.” An instinctive response, sharp and hard, and as much a mistake as a lunge drawn in by a faked weakness.

And the queen caught it, and moved in. “Am I to be glad or sorry for that?”

“Far be it for me to tell your grace what to do,” Jaime said, stalling by instinct, buying time to catch his breath.

“So you are wiser than I thought. And wiser than you look.”

“I’ve been told that isn’t difficult to achieve.”

Daenerys raised her eyebrows. “Come now, Ser Jaime. You can do better than that.”

“I’ve been told I never fail to disappoint.”

“Is this to be a litany of what others tell you?” The queen pressed him, knowing her advantage. “What makes you think I would prefer to hear their words from you, rather than from them?”

“Forgive me, your grace, but you must know you cannot expect honest argument from a subject.”

_That_ struck her. Her nostrils flared and she drew back from him. “I expect _honesty_ , at the very least.”

“That’s because you haven’t been queen for very long.”

“Your brother gives me honesty.”

“My brother the half-man is twice the man I am.”

Daenerys stared at him for a long moment, and then her lips twitched. “Ser Jaime, if we had met under different circumstances, I might have been tempted to wed you for sheer entertainment.”

_A draw, then._ “Your grace, if I had never met Lady Brienne, I might regret that you did not.”

“I would hear that story, one day,” Daenerys said. “But we should return to your lady wife and your good-father and your brother. And your … nephew, and his lady wife.”

Jaime offered his arm, and the queen laid her fingers gently on it. “I am grateful that you brought them to visit me. My brother, and my nephew, and his wife.”

Daenerys allowed him to guide her back inside Evenfall Hall. “I had rather the Lord of Casterly Rock be under your wife’s care than your sister’s.”  

“I’m still grateful.”

“I don’t kill children.” Her voice was suddenly steel. “I am not a Lannister.”

“I had no part –”

“You didn’t stop it.”

Jaime bowed his head. “No.”

“Why not? Did you not understand what your father was?”

He sought for a witty response, found none, and had only honesty to give her. “I don’t know. I don’t … your grace, I can’t really remember.”

Daenerys stopped, and looked up at him. “Only in dreams. Am I right? Or moments, flashing before your eyes. A nightmare, that you can’t quite wake from.”

Her face was still and set, her shadowed eyes the same deep shade as her mother’s, as the princess Rhaella. “Yes. Your grace …”

“I have nightmares, too,” Daenerys said, and turned, and walked straight-backed through the door ahead of them.


	17. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Food, and conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should note I'm going with book Tommen's age, or approximately. I've been re-reading and small Tommen hating beets and loving kittens is too adorable to un-headcanon. So, in case it doesn't go without saying, Tommen's marriage is most definitely unconsummated, and will remain so for quite some years.

 

The evening meal was civil – more than civil, really, thanks in large part to Margaery Tyrell. It was impossible to tell if her charming manners and her friendliness were real or feigned, but Jaime supposed it didn’t really matter. He wished he knew if she had genuine affection for Tommen, though. His son was clearly fond of his wife, and she _seemed_ to be fond of him. _But perhaps she only seeks to rule Casterly Rock through him._ Still, if that was the case, she would do it well, and if she was clever enough to falsify such a convincing display of sweetness and gentleness, she would be clever enough to treat Tommen kindly.

For several long years _being treated kindly_ had been all Jaime might have hoped for himself, if he had hoped at all. He glanced to his left, where Brienne was deep in conversation with the Queen.   _Now, though …_ now he knew that more was possible, and he wished that for his son.

_Well, if they are to visit until this war begins, there will be time to see._

“…kittens,” the queen was saying. “But as patient as Drogon can be when I ask it, several thousand leagues with a sack full of cats …”

Brienne laughed. “I’m sure we can find some kittens for Lord Tommen,” she said. “Did we provide enough goats for Drogon?”

“Yes,” Daenerys said. “And he is quite adept at fishing, as well.” She leaned forward and spoke past Brienne and Jaime to Lord Selwyn. “My Lord of Tarth, this feast has been wonderful. I have never tasted fish so sweet.”

“It’s the lemons –” Brienne and Selwyn said in unison, and both laughed.

“I will have Maester Jorge speak to the kitchen, and send instructions to the Red Keep,” Selwyn said.

“I thank you.” Daenerys wiped her mouth delicately. “I have matters to discuss with you, Lord Selwyn. And some others. May we repair to your solar?”

The _some others_ turned out to be Brienne, and Tyrion, and Jaime. Servants brought wine and cheese and fruit, and left them alone.

“Lord Selwyn,” Daenerys said. “There is a war coming.”

“There is always a war coming,” Selwyn said.

“Not like this, father,” Brienne said softly.

“No, not like this,” Daenerys said. “This is not a war to decide who controls this piece of land or that. Even the piece of land that supports the Iron Throne. This is a war between life, and death.”

Tyrion went to the table, and poured himself a generous goblet of wine. “Magic wakes, Lord Selwyn. Dragons fly, and the dead walk.”

“It’s true, father,” Brienne said. “The cold gods are real, and they are coming.”

Selwyn of Tarth was his daughter’s father. He blinked, and nodded, and said, “Tarth can send a thousand men, your grace. They are yours, the moment you say the word.”

“I will take five hundred of your thousand men,” Daenerys said. “The others will protect your people, here, and in Essos if it comes to that.”

“Your grace.” Selwyn sat very straight. “The people of Tarth will not flee.”

“You will,” Daenerys said. “You will, because I command it. The people of Tarth will leave Tarth, when the war comes. You will go to Meereen, which is ruled in my name by Daario Naharis, and you will help him prepare to receive any others of my people who manage to escape. You will safeguard them, until the end of winter. That is the duty I lay on you, Evenstar.”

After a moment, Selwyn nodded. “Your grace.”

“And I ask more of you.” Daenerys glanced at Tyrion, and he poured her a goblet of wine. “I ask your heir and your good-son. I will need them, in the war to come.”

“We are willing to fight,” Brienne said. “We will defend the realms of men.”

“ _If_ ,” Jaime said, shooting her a look.

Daenerys raised her eyebrows. “If? Your loyalty is conditional, Ser Jaime?”

“Lady Brienne may be –”

“We do not know when the war will come,” Brienne said firmly. “There may be no need to be concerned.”

There was a small silence, Daenerys still half-way between confusion and anger, Selwyn frowning in pure puzzlement.

Tyrion broke it, raising his goblet. “Congratulation, my sweet brother. I am to be an uncle again, I take it.”

“It isn’t certain yet,” Brienne said quickly, but her father was out of his seat and embracing her, and the queen was toasting in celebration, although her eyes were sad.

When the congratulations died down, Daenerys said, “I will not ask you to risk your child, Lady Brienne. I welcome you to our forces, if your circumstances allow. But I require Ser Jaime. My Hand tells me he is a strategic mind we need.”

“Sorry,” Tyrion muttered. “But it’s true.”

“Your grace,” Jaime said. He bowed his head. “I go where my wife goes. If she goes north, so do I. If she doesn’t, I will stay by her side.”

The queen’s mouth turned down.  “This is the great war. You suggest that neither of you fight for me?”

“Your grace –” Tyrion started.

Jaime cut him off. “What we face, we face together.”

Daenerys arched one eyebrow. “Is this a song, or a story? Am I to _applaud_ the idea that you put your affection before the lives of everyone in Westeros? Men of the Night’s Watch die daily for the realms of men. Lord Snow told me that the last of my family – last but me – used to say that love is the death of duty, and I see he was right.”

Jaime lowered his head, unable to meet her gaze. “Your grace.”

Brienne took his hand. “Your grace, you misunderstand.  Ser Jaime swore an oath to me, the day we wed. You well know the price Ser Jaime will pay to keep his oaths.”

The queen’s violet gaze lingered on Jaime. “So many oaths,” she said softly. “I don’t swear oaths, Ser Jaime. Lady Brienne. I make promises, and I keep them. I have promised to fight for the realms of men, and _I will_.” The steel in her voice was harder and sharper than the keenest blade. “I understand that now you anticipate being a father …” If anyone in the room missed the unspoken, and contemptuous, _again_ , Jaime did not. “You wish to protect your child. But I am the mother of dragons, and my children will fight. I do not ask _your_ children to fight, Ser Jaime – only their father.”

Brienne squeezed Jaime’s fingers. “Your grace. We will both do all we can, however we can. I pray that it is together, but if it is apart, so be it.”

Jaime turned to look at her, and she met his gaze, blue eyes clear and certain. _It won’t be_ , that sapphire gaze said. _It won’t ever be_.

_Where we go, we go together._


	18. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, while I can't quite fit show-logic into a proper Long Night, I found I couldn't just leave the story before it, either. Time jumps are the solution! Well, they're my solution.

_Two years later_

 

“Should we sound the retreat, ser?” Peck asked.

“Not yet. Be ready.” Beneath Jaime, his destrier shifted nervously, but stood his ground. Well-trained, the war-horse wouldn’t panic so long as he had a rider on his back, and that rider was calm. “Be ready, Peck. Almost … almost …”

The Dothraki horsemen streamed back towards the lines of foot, barely visible in the murky darkness. The pikemen stood fast, only parting at the last second to let the light cavalry pour through unimpeded and closing ranks quickly as soon as they were through.

The dead streamed forward. Robbed of their original prey, the horsed archers who had been harrying them with fire-arrows for days, they raced towards the men on foot who stood ready to meet them with spear and pike and any other pole-arm that could be scrounged up in what was left of the North.

“Ser!” Peck’s voice was tight.

Jaime judged speed and distance with a practiced eye, aided by the flaming arrows lodged fast in the first ranks of the dead. “Hold. Hold, Peck. Hold.” _There_. “Now!”

Peck’s arm rose and fell, a cloth of Lannister red in his hand and, more usefully given the constant darkness they lived with, a blazing lantern. A second later the horns sounded. One long note, two short. _Fall back, fall back, in good order, fall back._

They were small-folk holding those weapons, farmers and blacksmiths and bakers and tailors. _Aye, and their wives, too_. All the people of the North, turning out to train every day in the grim darkness of the night without end, fighting for their homes and their lives with a ferocious determination that even the most experienced soldiers from the southern kingdoms couldn’t match. At the horns, they moved instantly, turning and trotting quickly back to the second rally point and then wheeling and falling back into formation. _Oh, well done._ Jaime knew the courage it took to hold, and stand, and move without panic when your back was to the enemy. _Well done, well done._

The dead came on, and on, and on –

“ _Now!”_ Jaime roared, and Peck’s arm lifted again, and the horns sounded. Short, short, short again.

Nothing happened, and Jaime swore, and for the first time that day his horse tried to rear, fighting the bit. The dead were twenty paces from the ranks of the living, fifteen, ten –

The fire-trench roared to life even as the feet of the first row of dead men touched it. Green fire, not wholesome, comforting orange: fire that could melt stone and dissolve flesh and that jumped from corpse to corpse and deep into the ranks of the army of the dead.

They came on, regardless, but to no avail. Every rank flamed and collapsed before they could come near the living.

“Now, Peck,” Jaime said again, and for the third time Peck flourished the crimson flag and the lantern, and the horns sounded, two long, one short. From the outskirts of the battle, the Dothraki came screaming, having circled behind and around the field. Each carried a small pot of glowing coals, and each arrow they shot was on fire. So well-trained were their horses that not a single one flinched as the arrows ignited, only pounded onwards as their riders sent flaming arrow after flaming arrow into the middle of the army of the dead. At the last possible moment, they wheeled and streaked past the walking corpses and back into the concealment of the trees.

Fire everywhere, now. Dead men burning, and not paying attention to it, flailing onwards. A field of fire, and in the middle of it –

“There, ser!” Peck screamed, arm outflung, as if Jaime hadn’t seen that white, still figure.

He set his heels to his horse. “Now, boy,” he said, as if the destrier needed any other signal to plunge forward, as if the horse hadn’t been straining at the reins for most of the past hour. Powerful hindquarters bunched and uncoiled, huge hooves dug into the snow, and they flew forward. It was almost a joust, if Jaime had still been able to joust.

He dropped the reins, his mount needing no more guidance now than trained bloodlust to streak towards the target. They were into the ranks of the burning dead, fire all around them, but if Jaime flinched his mount would, and so he set his knees and leaned forward, and drew Widow’s Wail. “On, now, steady now, on …” Was it his mount he encouraged, or himself?

Fifty paces, thirty … ten. The Other was mounted as well, but whatever the dark magic used to raise the dead it wasn’t sufficient to add years of training to them. Jaime’s mount pivoted and kicked out with barely a thought from Jaime to guide him. Living hooves smashed into dead legs and the corpse horse staggered and went down, trying and failing to rise.

The cold god who’d ridden him had been thrown free, and rose easily to its feet. Its sword was white, and thin, and keen, as if moonlight had met and melded with steel. Everything out of nightmare, still and slender and deadly.

Jaime had faced nightmares. He kicked his horse, cruelly hard, sending it straight for the foe, and the stallion went, game as any man could be, despite that raised broadsword promising death. At the last minute Jaime sat back hard, heels lifting to his destrier’s shoulders, and his mount fought to stop, sliding in the snow, went down with a scream –

Jaime’s leg was already clear of the stirrup and over the pommel and he sprang clear as his horse fell, using the momentum of his charge to leap forward, Widow’s Wail raised –

One clean cut, straight down through the head and into the shoulder, lethal to mortal man – with a Valerian steel sword just as lethal to a creature from myth –

Ice sprayed into his eyes and all around, the dead fell, burning and whole alike. Jaime staggered, and sucked in a hard breath, and turned to find the next foe. When there was none to face him, his knees weakened, and he sank to the snow.

“Ser Jaime!” Peck’s voice was too close, and Jaime turned to see his squire running towards him. He raised a hand to show he was alright, and then pushed himself to his feet to go and see to his horse.

The big bay destrier Jaime had been assigned when he arrived at Winterfell thrashed and heaved himself to his feet. Jaime held his bridle and murmured reassurance until the horse was calm enough to let Jaime to run his hands down the horse’s legs to check for soundness.

Peck, being no fool, kept his distance. “Is he lamed?”

There was swelling in the off-hand knee, but not, Jaime judged, bad. “He’ll need a rest,” he said. He straightened, and rubbed the destrier’s chin. “And he’s earned one.”

“Has he earned a name yet?” Peck asked.

Jaime grinned, careful to keep his back to Peck and his face to the destrier’s cheek as he did. “You’re the one who names my horses. Is this one honour, or glory?”

“Courage,” Peck said after a moment. “His name is Courage.”

“Good enough.” Jaime caught Courage’s reins beneath his chin and turned him back towards the Last Hearth.

“That’s thirty-eight,” Peck said, coming to keep pace with Jaime. “Out of …”

“At least a hundred,” Jaime said, when the boy’s voice trailed off. “I know. But we fight where we are, with what we have, as best we can.” His one good hand was holding Courage’s reins, but he slung his right arm around Peck’s shoulders. “You did well today.”

“I waved a flag,” Peck said.

“And you’d rather have swung a sword?” Peck ducked away, and Jaime grinned. “Many men swung a sword, but only one turned the tide of battle. The man beside me, with a flag and flame.”

“I could fight,” Peck said. “I _could_.”

“You have,” Jaime reminded him. “At the White Knife. At Torren’s Square.”

“Not well enough,” Peck said glumly.

“Well enough to be alive,” Jaime said. “Well enough for me to be alive. You’ve earned your knighthood, and I’d give it to you, but I can’t do without you at present.” The walls of the Last Hearth were ahead, and Jaime turned Courage’s reins over to Peck. “I know it’s unfair. But we would have lost today, if you didn’t have such a cool head when it’s needed.”

Peck was a lot less young than he had been, but he was still young enough to blush at the compliment, and to be embarrassed by it.  He muttered something unintelligible, and led Courage away to the care of the stable-hands.

Jaime went into the keep, finding his way by light of the torches and lanterns that smoked everywhere. It was crowded to bursting by their forces, but the Umbers were hardly about to complain: they’d have been overrun by the forces of the cold gods long ago without Jaime’s forces to supplement their own. _And if the_ _Others had spared them, hunger would have taken them instead._

 Winter had come hard on the heels of a war that had stripped the North of men, and getting in the last harvest had been impossible. Without the wagon-loads of grain that rolled north up the King’s Road, and the soldiers who guarded them, the whole region would have joined the Others’ army without a single blow needing to be struck. The wheat and salt pork and dried fruit was as welcome to the Umbers as the soldiers, perhaps more so.

Jaime wove his way through the crowded courtyard, trying to avoid the worst of the sheep-shit and praying not to trip on a pig. He spotted a skinny boy with the Umbers’ flame-red colour knotted on his sleeve, and grabbed his shoulder. “Go tell the Greatjon that we won the day.”

The boy nodded and darted off, and Jaime found the nearest doorway and ducked inside. The stench of confined livestock was less, indoors – although not entirely absent – but there were other stinks, including the pervasive odour of a great many people with neither the time nor the energy to bathe. _Myself included._ If he hadn’t been aware that Peck was likely as weary as he was, Jaime would have ordered water heated for a bath. _Yes, and fallen asleep in it, and become the first Lannister to die in a bathtub._

He was already struggling with his armour when he reached his room, and yanked a vambrace free and tossed it aside with a clatter as he kicked the door shut behind him.

“You’ll dent it,” Brienne said behind him.

Jaime spun, and she was there: looking pale and weary, dressed in travel-stained tunic and breeches, but _there_. Whether she moved or he did, he couldn’t have said, but in a heartbeat she was in his arms. She pressed one fierce kiss to his lips and drew his head down to her shoulder, fingers buried in his hair.

“Jaime, Jaime, Jaime,” she whispered.

“I didn’t expect you for five more days.” He held to her. In truth it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. Brienne was here, and she was safe, and all the weariness of the past weeks crashed over him like one of Tarth’s fierce blue waves.

“We have a red priest with us,” Brienne said. She must have sensed how tired he was, because she sank down to the floor, pulling him with her. “He’s very useful when it comes to snowdrifts.”

Jaime laughed, and found himself on the verge of tears. He pressed his face against her neck, cradled in her arms. “I have missed you.”

Brienne ran her hand over his hair, and then he felt her fingers deft on the fastenings of his armour. “I should hope you did. A wife wishes to be missed by her husband, when she is apart from him.”

Pieces of his armour fell away, their weight only making itself known as it left him. “I have missed you more than I miss my hand. Truly, Brienne, if some god had offered me a bargain in these last weeks, to have you back with me or to have my hand back, I would have gladly chosen your arrival early.”

Brienne laughed, lifting his breastplate free and setting it aside. “Turn a little. That’s it.” She started on his cuisse. “I had a raven before I left the Reach. All is well in Essos.”

Jaime turned a little more, to give her access to his other leg, and felt a fear he hadn’t even been aware of leave him. He let his eyes close. “Is that all?”

“No, it was written both sides and crossed. Tommen is learning swordplay with the master-of-arms of the Second Sons. There are many cats in Meereen and he has five kittens. Margaery is assisting my father and Daario Naharis, and my father is very impressed with her. And Joanna is the cleverest and most beautiful child in the history of children.”

“Of course,” Jaime said. He tried to open his eyes, but couldn’t. _Joanna_. He’d never held her, never even seen her, the little girl with his mother’s name. Born at Winterfell, before the Wall fell, born on a day when Jaime had fought atop the wall side-by-side with Wildlings. Three days, that battle had raged, the dead scaling the wall with their ice-spiders the size of hounds. The forces of the living had needed to rest and eat, spelling each other off on shorter and shorter watches, and when they finally beat the enemy back Jaime had staggered into the lift-cage so tired he had gone sound asleep on his feet in the time it took for him to be winched down. The raven-scroll had been waiting. _A girl, Joanna. Your wife and daughter are in good health._ Sent south with a wet-nurse within weeks, his little girl, and Brienne back at Castle Black. “She must be.” _I may never know her. Brienne may never know her. Even now, she will love her wet-nurse more than either of us._

_Gods be good, she will love Tommen and Lord Selwyn too. Let her have that much of us._

“Don’t fall asleep until I have your armour off,” Brienne said.

“I don’t know if I have a choice,” Jaime said.

Or thought he said. The world was sliding away from him, Brienne’s arms strong and warm around him. _She is here. She is safe. The ones we love are well._

Soft darkness gathered him in.


	19. Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne has important information.

Brienne was asleep when Jaime woke. They were in his bed, which was not really big enough for both of them, but Brienne had made room by the simple expedient of draping herself over him. She was warm and, slack with sleep, soft. Jaime turned his head to look at her, or at least, at the sliver of her face he could see with her face pressed against the pillow, and the edge of her shoulder within view.

There was a new scar there, still new enough to be red. Not a bad one, typical of the kind of injury that a sharp, hard blow to the pauldron would cause when the armour held but the edges bit deep. Still, Jaime hated to see it. He would have soothed it with a kiss but he couldn’t quite reach and he was loathe to move and risk waking Brienne.  

She stirred regardless, perhaps sensing his own wakefulness. “Jaime?”

“Hush,” he whispered. “Sleep, Brienne.”

“Mmmm.” Brienne shifted a little, turned to press her cheek against his, and went out again.

Jaime closed his eyes and let himself follow her.

It was Peck who woke them both, some time later. “Ser Jaime, Lady Brienne.”

Jaime roused himself enough to curse him and buried his face in the pillow again, but Brienne was made of sterner stuff. She raised herself on her elbow. “What is it, Peck?”

“Bread and cheese and some salted fish, my lady. And word from the Greatjon.”

Brienne gathered the sheet more firmly to her and sat up. “What word?”

“That there is no sign of the Others within three day’s march, and you have his leave to rest, and attend him at whatever time suits you.”

“Thank you,” Brienne said. “And Podrick?”

“Still asleep, my lady. Do you want me to wake him?”

“No. Let him rest.”

“Yes, my lady.” Peck said, and left.

Jaime went back to sleep the instant he heard the door close, but it couldn’t have been for very long, because the next thing he knew Brienne was prodding his shoulder with one long finger. “Wake up and eat something, Jaime.”

“Later.”

“Now,” she insisted, sitting up with a platter in her lap.

Having previous experience of what Brienne could be like when she insisted, Jaime groaned and rolled over. “Salted fish. I loathe salted fish.”

“Open your mouth,” Brienne said, and when he did, put a piece of cheese between his lips. “That’s from our shipment.”

Jaime chewed. _Goat’s cheese._ “Tarth?”

“No.” Brienne said sadly. “The Vale.”

The grief in her voice meant Jaime had to wake up properly. He rolled over and wrapped his arms around her. “We’ll be back on Tarth before you know it.”

Brienne offered him a piece of fish, and Jaime ate it, to appease her. “I know.”

“Everything that matters about Tarth is safe,” Jaime said. “Your father is safe, our daughter is safe, your people are safe.” He kissed her side. “Nothing else matters. Everything else can be repaired.”

“I wish we were there,” Brienne said softly. “With Joanna, and Tommen.”

“I do as well. And we will be. I promise.”

“You can’t –”

“Oh, you’re the only one of us allowed to swear impossible oaths and keep them?” Jaime said.

Brienne ran her fingers through his hair, pressing his face to her skin, and then gripped gently and pulled him away from her to feed him another piece of cheese. “We had two bands try to stop us, north of Moat Cailin.  They’re moving south.”

Jaime swallowed hastily, sitting up. “Two?” That was more than the Last Hearth had faced in two months.  “Have any passed Moat Cailin?”

Brienne shook her head. “Not when I –”

Jaime scrambled out of bed, hunting for his breeches. “Come on.”

“What—?”

“Come on! Forget the food, get dressed and come with me!”

He threw on shirt and breeches and enough furs to keep him warm in the Last Hearth’s corridors and then hurried Brienne into her own clothes. She grabbed one last morsel of fish and let him drag her through the corridors to the rookery.

“Ser Jaime!” Maester Roenin scrambled awake. “Is something amiss?”

“The opposite,” Jaime assured him. “How many birds have you ready to fly?”

“Nineteen,” the maester said promptly.

“I have a message that _must_ get to Lady Sansa at Winterfell. As wide as possible, apart from that, but it _must_ reach Winterfell.”

“Eight birds,” Maester Roenin said. “The others to go elsewhere.”

Jaime nodded. “Will you write it for me?” He raised his golden hand. “It will take five scrolls for me to say what you can scribe in one.”

“Of course.” The maester scrambled for ink and a pen. “What should I say?”

“The Others concentrate their attacks on our supply lines,” Jaime said.

Measter Ronin wrote, and paused. “And?”

“That is all,” Jaime said. “If that word gets to Lord Snow or Ser Jorah Mormont, it will be enough. You must be sure it gets through!”

“I will, I will be sure!”

“Jaime, what is this about?” Brienne demanded. “Why have you –”

Jaime cut her off by the simply expedient of dragging her out of the room and kissing her breathless. “They are ignoring our strongholds and striking at our supply-lines,” he explained when he let her go.

Brienne frowned. “Of course. That’s what anyone would do.”

“Yes!” He wrapped his arms around her waist and spun her around. “It’s what anyone would do. You, or me, or Jon Snow. Don’t you understand?”

“No?”

He kissed her, hard. “They think like us,” he explained. “They make the same decisions we would make. They _understand_ us, and we can understand them. And any army whose commanders we understand is an army we can defeat.”  

 


	20. Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Jaime and Brienne have missed each other.

 

Jaime would have taken Brienne straight back to bed to fuck her senseless in celebration if it had been up to him alone, but Brienne insisted they go to tell the Greatjon what he’d deduced, and then there were other military commanders to explain it to. Brienne was tugged aside from him to tell people just how large the forces she’d faced had been, and Jaime found himself in a long conversation with three northern lords whose names he couldn’t bring to mind about whether they should send out dummy resupply trains to draw the Others in.

It was days – well, probably hours, although who could tell without either sun or moon – before Jaime could excuse himself and snag Brienne’s elbow to draw her with him.

Out the door, down the corridor, around one corner and then two – sufficient privacy, Jaime judged, and pushed Brienne up against the wall and leaned up to capture her mouth.

Brienne being Brienne, she murmured something about _people_ and _wait_ and it took him three long kisses to get her to stop her protests and melt into his embrace. Brienne being Brienne, once she had reached that point, she drove her fingers into his hair and held him still so she could ravish his mouth at leisure.

Jaime drew back to suggest they find their bed, but Brienne chased his lips with hers and he lost the thought in the heat and softness of her mouth.

“Missed you,” Brienne panted, without drawing back. “Jaime. Jaime.”

Jaime tangled his fingers in her hair and worked his knee between hers and got the upper hand. _For the moment._ “Don’t go away again,” he demanded. “Stay with me. Fight with me.”

“Where I’m needed –”

“ _I_ need you.” Jaime pushed his hips against her so she could be in no mistake as to just exactly _how_ he meant it. “A man shouldn’t be apart from his wife, Brienne. It’s unfair.”

Brienne laughed. “Unfair? What exactly about all of this is – ” She caught her breath as Jaime rocked into her again. “Oh, Jaime …”

“Bed,” he said roughly. “Now.”

He dragged her behind him for the first few paces and then she was by his side, as eager as he was. The door to his room was  barely closed before she was tearing at his clothes, and then her own.

“I should bathe –” Jaime said.

“Shut up.” Brienne pushed him back until the bed was behind his knees and shoved him down. “I’ll bathe you later.”

The pulse of lust that shot through Jaime at the idea was positively unseemly for a married man thinking about his wife. A moment longer and that alone might have completely undone him, but Brienne crawled on top of him and straddled him and –

“Oh, fuck!” Jaime groaned, and spent on the instant like a green boy.

Brienne leaned forward to press her forehead to his. “Better?”

“Fuck. I’m sorry. I –”

She kissed him fiercely, his seed warm and sticky between them. “Shut up. Shut up.”

Jaime shifted a little, reaching between them, but Brienne forestalled him and pinned his arm to the mattress. “Brienne –”

She held him down. “Shut up.” Slowly, she began to rock, sliding against his softened manhood. It felt good, despite the fact that Jaime knew he wouldn’t be of much use to her for a while yet. Brienne had him well and truly pinned, and Jaime knew from experience that when this particular mood was on her, he might as well yield immediately.

_Especially when yielding is such a delight._ Brienne shifted her grip on him so her elbows pinned his shoulders and her fingers knotted in his hair to hold his head still while she ravished his mouth at her leisure. Jaime lost track of time, drifting in golden haze punctuated by Brienne’s mouth and hands and hot, slick sex, until his cock began to respond to her again.

Brienne chuckled against his mouth. “There you are.”

Jaime could only moan as Brienne released him only long enough to fit them together. She sank down slowly, hands on his shoulders again, and held him to the bed as she began to ride him. She set an urgent pace immediately and then a frantic one, until her fingers dug in to the point of pain and she tightened and then pulsed around him, whimpering his name.

She collapsed against his chest, gasping.

“Better?” Jaime teased, and Brienne huffed and swatted his arm.

And then began to move again, much more slowly. She sat up and let go of his shoulders, taking his hand and stump instead and drawing them to her hips. “Hold to me. Hold on to me.”

“Yes,” Jaime said, tightening his grip. Whether it was he or she who quickened the pace, he couldn’t tell, but his four fingers bit into Brienne’s hip as she leaned back, bracing herself his thighs. “Brienne. Look at me. Let me see you.”

She raised herself enough to look down at him, flushed and breathless, her brilliant eyes dark and dazed, and Jaime surged up and into her, hard and then harder, feeling every one of her gasps and moans from his scalp to the soles of his feet. “Jaime, please,” she panted. “I – I can’t –”

He couldn’t either, thrust once more before he lost himself in the blind bliss of release as Brienne cried out and doubled over to press her face against his neck. Jaime wrapped his arms around her and held her, relishing her weight on him. “Don’t go away again,” he said. “I don’t care what Lord Snow wants. Don’t leave me again.”

Brienne turned her head enough to press her lips to his skin. “Perhaps the war will end.”

“I don’t care,” Jaime said. “I’ll fight it forever, if I can fight it with you, and not apart from you.”

“And Joanna?”

Jaime sighed. “I want to meet her. I want to know her. But I don’t. But you … Brienne, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t –”

“Hush, hush, hush,” Brienne said, wrapping her arms around him.

Jaime blinked hard and pressed his face against her shoulder until the threat of tears retreated. “I can’t be without you anymore,” he said on one hard breath.

“Then you won’t be,” Brienne said. “Jaime. You won’t be.”

   


	21. Twenty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years later. Afterwards.

_Three years later_.

 

* * *

 

The sun was warm and the brisk wind that had carried them across the Narrow Sea had died down to a sweet, soft breeze that carried hints of the city ahead of them as it swirled and eddied around Jaime and Brienne. Unfamiliar spices, dust, the more familiar odours of many people crowded together. Jaime wrinkled his nose at a particularly pungent note. _Many people, and their animals_.

On another day, he would leaned against the ship’s rail and simply enjoyed the day. _Sunlight. Warmth. Peace._ Three things he’d almost given up knowing again in his lifetime. But not today, as their ship slid into Meereen’s harbour.

“Do you see them?” he asked Brienne, her sight being keener at a distance than his.  

She raised a hand to shade her eyes. “I think so – if Tommen’s had quite the growth spurt.”

“He’s seventeen,” Jaime said. _The same age I was when I killed my king._ “He’s a man grown, I’d hope he’s taller then when last I saw him.” And now he could see them for himself, and it _was_ Tommen, there was no mistaking the face he’d shaved in the mirror daily, and beside him Margaery, a woman full-flowered now, five-and-twenty and with the bearing of a queen.

Between them, holding to each of their hands –

“She’s so big,” Brienne burst out at the same instant as Jaime thought _She’s so small._ Fair-haired and straight-backed and – he laughed.

“She’s wearing a toy sword in her belt,” he said.

The ship cast anchor, and a boat was lowered. There was a dicey moment when Jaime was climbing down the ladder, his golden hand no use at all, and he thought he was going to discover once and for all if he could swim without both his hands in the Meereen harbour in front of his son and daughter, but Brienne grabbed the back of his tunic and hauled him unceremoniously down.

At the quay, Jaime let Brienne climb the ladder first, so she could help him up, but it was his strong young son who reached down to clasp his hand.

Clasped it, and held it, even once Jaime was safely on the dock. “Uncle Jaime,” Tommen said, and then more quietly. “Father.”

 _So_. That moment of knowledge and acceptance had come, and gone, and his son had made his peace with it, and all in Jaime’s absence. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s good to see you.”

And then Tommen did as Jaime would never had dared to do with his own father, and pulled him into a quick embrace. He released him just as quickly. “Let me introduce you to your daughter.”

The little girl looked up at him, not shy, but not trusting, either.  Jaime knelt, to bring them to a more equal height. He offered his hand. “Joanna. My name is Jaime.”

Joanna took his hand, not as a girl expecting a courtly bow but to shake it. “You’re my father.”

“I am,” Jaime said.

“You’ve been fighting the war. Did you win?”

“We did, your mother and I.” He glanced up to see Brienne hesitating. Her hands were behind her back, her shoulders braced, and Jaime realised how much worse this was for her than for him. _For me, this girl was only ever an idea, a story, someone I longed to meet._ But Brienne had held Joanna, nursed her, and said goodbye, and now she was a stranger to the child she’d carried within her. “We missed you very much. We were very sad to send you away, but it was the only way we could be sure you were safe.”

Joanna nodded. “ _I_ know. Uncle Tommen and Aunt Margaery told me _all_ about it.” Her gaze flickered past him. “Doesn’t my mother like me?”

“She’s shy,” Jaime said. “Shall we go to her, instead?”

Joanna considered, and nodded. She marched past Jaime as he was still getting to his feet – her left hand steadying the little hilt of her toy sword, he was amused to note – and held out her hand. “I’m Joanna. You’re my mother. I’ve very pleased to meet you.”

Brienne took the little hand gently. “You’ve gotten very tall,” she said. Her lower lip quivered. “I like your sword.”

“It’s not sharp. I’m not allowed a sharp one until I’m older.”

“Well, it’s still good for practice, though,” Brienne said. Her voice shook, and she swallowed hard. “Your father and I practice every day, when we’re not fighting real battles. And we don’t use sharp swords for it.”

“Uncle Tommen says you’re very good. Will you practice with me?”

“I would like that,” Brienne said. “But you must promise not to hurt me too badly.”

Joanna looked her up and down. “I don’t think I could,” she said consideringly. “My sword’s only little. Not like yours.”

Brienne touched the hilt of Oathkeeper. “I wouldn’t use this. It’s too sharp for practice.”

“It’s Valerian steel,” Joanna said. “Oathkeeper. Father gave it to you to protect Lady Sansa Stark. It’s the sword you used to save the maiden from the outlaws, as well as save Sansa Stark. And you killed eight different cold gods with it. I know _all_ the songs – Aunt Margaery taught me.”

Jaime chuckled. “I’m jealous.”

“We have a litter,” Margaery said. “It’s rather a lot of steps for little legs.”

“If we go now, we’ll get home before the midday meal,” Joanna said. “I’ll have time to show you my pony.”

“Well, then,” Brienne said. “We must go at once.”

She held out her hand, and Joanna took it, and then, after a moment, held out her other to Jaime.

He put his left hand on her shoulder, instead. “Spare a hand for your sword,” he said, “or you’ll trip.”

His handsome young son and his regally beautiful good-daughter led the way, and Brienne and Jaime followed them, their daughter between them. _Going home_ , Joanna had said, and it was truer than she knew. Home to where she’d grown up, here in Essos, but then, home to Tarth, with its sapphire seas and emerald glens. At this moment, they might be increasing the distance to Tarth with each step, but they were moving towards it.

 _Perhaps we have been all along._ Or, more truthfully, perhaps _he_ had been. Casterly Rock to King’s Landing; Winterfell; Castle Black, the Last Hearth, Moat Cailin … and now Meereen. All of them, waystations on a long journey that had taken him from west to east to north to further-than-east …

And was now, finally, going to take all of them home.   


End file.
